by Joe Layburn
Neither of us speaks for a long time.
“Was she dead?” I ask finally.
“I don’t know,” my father whispers.
“You’re a doctor, Papa. You’re supposed to help people.”
“That is true, dearest one. But there was nothing I could do for her. There is nothing I can do for any of our people.”
***
I shiver and pull my blanket around me. I am in China now and that hot, distant day is long gone. So is the old woman and so is my father. I have taken my chance to run from North Korea but China, my new home, is no paradise.
I am hiding in a construction site, on the upper floor of an unfinished office block. It is just the skeleton of a building; there is no roof to stop the rain pouring in. Security guards patrol the site at night, shining their torches everywhere, tripping over building equipment and swearing loudly. If they discover you, they kick you awake and yell at you until you run down the half-made stairs and away. But my biggest fear is the Chinese police. If they catch me, I will be deported back to North Korea and a prison camp.
It’s hard to sleep, but when I do, I often dream of that old woman in the dusty North Korean road. Then I wonder if my father’s actions that day made him a bad person. The thought nags at me like toothache but in the end I reject it. My father was a good man, a sane man in a mad world. He was nothing like the Dear Leader and his cronies.
I talk to Fatima often. She can’t speak Korean, of course, but when you communicate by telepathy it doesn’t have to be in actual words. Often it’s like your thoughts and memories and emotions just flow out of you and merge with the other person’s. Then they can understand everything you think and feel. It’s hard to explain if you’ve never done it. But the truth is, if Fatima hadn’t found me and tuned in to my deepest needs and fears, I don’t think I could have made it.
Try and rest, she tells me. I am sending someone to you. I promise they’ll be there soon.
Even though I am lying on a cold, concrete floor in a dangerous foreign land, that thought makes me smile.
MELISSA
At school, Leona, Kodi and Simone could talk about nothing but the Celebrity Skin TV show and last night’s ‘Underwear Challenge’. All the has-been soap stars, pop singers and dancers were running out of clothes now, because every time they lost a challenge they had to remove something. The show had been on for a few weeks and it was obvious we would soon be seeing the first celebrity to strip down to their birthday suit. Not that any of the contestants seemed to mind all that much - most of them seemed desperate to show off their bodies to the world 24/7.
“The radiators in that Celebrity Skin house must be turned right up cos it’s freezing outside. No way would I walk round in the buff in this weather,” Kodi said.
Leona pouted thoughtfully.
“Yeah, but if you could win a hundred thousand pounds. . .”
Artsem laughed behind his tiny hand and rocked back on his chair.
“Man, it’s disgusting. Even if you win the whole thing, everyone gets to see you in your underpants. No way would I go on that programme.”
“No way would anyone ask you, Artsem,” Leona said.
“Innit, though,” chorused Kodi and Simone.
I had to admit that I’d been watching Celebrity Skin just like the rest of the class, but even I could see it was what Miss de Souza, our teacher, called “exploitative of everyone involved, including the audience”.
“It is trash, though,” I said. “It makes me feel bad for watching it.”
Leona turned round slowly to inspect me.
“But Melissa, now that you’re a celebrity, what with you being on the news and everything, maybe you could be on Celebrity Skin.”
I sensed that Artsem and Mikhail were about to say something so I flashed them my Don’t even think about it look. They said nothing.
“My friend Fatima says it’s degrading. She says it’s a shame that television can’t be used for more important things.”
I could see them all frowning at me.
“I don’t mean instead of stuff like Celebrity Skin, I mean as well as.”
Kodi curled her lip.
“You mean like educational things. There’s all those nature programmes. You could always watch something about hippos, Melissa, if you don’t want to see celebrities getting naked.”
“Kodi, yeah, be careful talking about me and hippos in the same sentence. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt, understand?”
Kodi blushed.
“No, Melissa, I didn’t mean nothing about your weight. Really. I was just saying, you know. . .”
I ignored her.
“Since Cable Street when we stopped the Fascists from marching, I’ve been a bit more interested in what’s going on in the world,” I said. “Maybe there should be things on TV about politics and stuff for kids.”
Artsem snorted again.
“No one would watch that when they can see some guy getting whacked by a giant cotton bud and knocked into a pool of gunge.”
And then my hero Kele spoke.
“I might watch a programme about politics. In fact, I did. I saw this thing called Question Time the other night. It was all right, as it goes.”
Leona started purring. Ever since she’d seen Kele on the TV she was all over him.
“Kel, that clip of you at Cable Street after you stopped the Fascists. Innit, you can see it on YouTube now?”
Kele gave her this big goofy grin.
“Yeah, I seen it, Leona. I reckon that TV crew got my best side!”
He pulled this stupid face like he was an actor posing for a photo. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Kele in many ways, but sometimes he made me sick.
GEORGE
The burnt-out flat I’d been hiding in was on the edge of the estate where Melissa lived with her mum. There were twenty blocks, each six storeys high, all huddled around sunless squares of cracked concrete. Walkways ran along each floor, linking the flats. Some were boarded up with signs in red paint saying ‘Keep Out’. From above, the estate must have looked like a prison.
For three days and nights I’d kept away. When Fatima warned me that my dad and the police were coming, I grabbed my things and ran. But back on the streets I felt exposed. Jack could be anywhere, closing in on me, watching me as I bedded down for the night.
I climbed the steps of the block where Melissa had found a hiding place for me. The stench of urine in the stairwell made my nostrils flare. It was almost dark. The wall lights, which were protected by small wire cages, were either flickering or dead. I passed the third floor, the fourth floor.
The stairwell came out in the middle of the topmost walkway. I looked over the edge and gulped. I’d forgotten how high up it was. To my right was the boarded-up flat that had been my hideaway, fire damaged and damp. I tapped on the plywood nailed across the door. Nothing. Then I saw a shape move behind a frosted glass window to one side where the boards had been removed.
Melissa, is that you?
I forced the window open and hoisted myself up so my chest was balanced on the narrow sill. Then, palms stretched out in front of me, I slithered down onto the scorched black floorboards and strips of charred carpet below.
“Welcome home,” a voice said from the shadows. “I reckon you could stay here forever now. The police don’t believe you was even here at all. And the Council will never get round to doing it up again.”
Melissa had brought two shopping bags of supplies for me. Without even thanking her, I tore the wrapper off a meat pie and began to devour it.
“You eat like a pig, Georgie.”
“You’re the best, Melissa,” I said between mouthfuls.
“I know. That’s what everyone says.”
The flat was freezing. We could see our breath as we spoke.
“So what did the police say?”
“They was really angry. They said we’d wasted their time. Fatima told them straight up about telepathy and how we speak to you and tha
t made them even madder. I think your dad believed us, though. He knows, Georgie, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, he knows. I’ve told him, anyway.”
“Don’t you want to talk things over with him? I never even met my dad. I know yours is a Fascist and everything but don’t you think you should see if he’s changed? We’re all different since Cable Street. Maybe he is too.”
“He’d have to have changed a lot. He’d have to accept that I’ve got friends like you, for a start.”
Melissa gave this little girly smile.
“That’s a nice thing to say, Georgie.”
“I’m serious.”
She watched me wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
“What did you think of the pie?”
“Awesome. The best pie ever.”
“I’d better be going. My mum’s noticed me jacking things from the fridge. I don’t want to give you away again.”
I glanced at the window. Melissa had never come into the flat before. I couldn’t see how she could possibly have squeezed her body through the narrow opening, or how she was going to leave.
“Remember I can read your mind,” she said, one eyebrow raised. “And if you’d bothered to read mine you’d know that the front door is unlocked.”
She opened it and, without looking back, headed off along the walkway into the night.
***
I woke with the smell of smoke in my nostrils, having dreamt I was leaning by the cooker at home chatting with my mum. But it wasn’t the smell of Sunday custard bubbling over onto the electric rings, it was the sour whiff of my burnt-out hideaway.
The wind was whistling through a broken pane of glass above my head and I could hear hail spattering like shotgun pellets against those windows that were still in one piece. I’d fallen asleep in the dark but it was getting light now. I looked up at the soot grimed ceiling, then over at the wall above the lifeless radiator.
I shuddered and started to scream. In blood red paint, someone had written me a message:
GEORGIE MUST DIE.
HYUN-MI
The day the police came for my father, I knew something was wrong. When I got home from school he threw his arms around me and held me tightly against his chest. He was pale and whiskery - my father never went a day without shaving! He was not a drinker but I smelled alcohol on his breath.
“It’s over, dearest one. I have been reported to the authorities. One of the doctors at the hospital heard me cursing the Dear Leader under my breath. That’s a crime that can never be forgiven. I’m afraid I have ruined us all.”
I freed myself from his grasp.
“Then you must apologise to the Dear Leader, Papa. Say it was all a misunderstanding. Surely he will listen to you.”
He placed both his hands on my shoulders and stared into my eyes. What he said next sounded like madness but I had no doubt he was serious.
“If you are to have any chance, Hyun-mi, you must run. They will come for you, and your grandmother as well. It is the cruel way of our country that whole families are sent to the prison camps if even one of them does something wrong.”
“But where will I go?”
Tears were spilling down his cheeks now.
“I don’t know. You must hide amongst the street orphans. There are thousands of them - many have lost their parents in the famines. Compared to theirs, your life has been very comfortable, but you must become hard, Hyun-mi. That way you may yet live.”
“I would rather come with you and Grandmother to prison.”
He wiped his eyes. Suddenly he was very business-like and I heard the tone he used with his hospital staff.
“In prison, Hyun-mi, none of us would survive, that much is certain. I know that if you run you will probably die on the streets. But prove me wrong, dearest one. Find a way to live on, for me. Please prove me wrong!”
I heard the sound of boots tramping up the stairs to our apartment. Fear flashed across my father’s face.
“Go into the kitchen and climb out onto the window ledge. Wait there until they have taken us.”
I tried to hug him but he shoved me away.
“Mother, they are here,” he cried, and I saw my grandmother’s tiny, birdlike face appear at her bedroom door.
“Go now, Hyun-mi, and save yourself!” she said.
They didn’t bother to knock. The door to our apartment splintered as they kicked it in. My father tried to talk down to them, to show them he was still a man of importance, but they ignored him. I could hear shouting as the policemen ripped through the flat, tearing open wardrobes and cupboards. They ransacked the kitchen, too, but they didn’t look out onto the ledge where I was hiding.
“Where is your daughter? We were told that three of you lived here.”
My father’s voice was raised too now. The walls of our building were thin and I could hear every word.
“She is staying with a school friend. It’s just my mother and myself.”
“You lie!” one of the policeman screamed back at him. He must have knocked my father down because I heard the crash of falling furniture and shattering glass. I also heard my grandmother wail.
“How dare you! We are loyal subjects of the Dear Leader and his father, the Great Leader, before him. My son is the Dear Leader’s personal physician. This is an outrage!”
They must have struck my poor grandmother too. She gave a little cry and then was silent.
On the ledge outside our apartment, I covered my mouth with my hand. I was sobbing and shivering but I knew they must not hear me. I inched along so the policemen would not see me unless they leant right outside. The walls of our building had been damaged by years of wintry weather. I clung on with aching fingers to a deep crack that ran from the top of the kitchen window to the apartment above.
Far below me the Taedong River snaked through our capital city. I could see the Arch of Triumph - at school they told us it was taller than the one in a country called France. To the left was the fifty-storey luxury hotel that my father said was always empty.
My father and his big mouth. Look where it had got us. My poor, darling father. I knew he would rather die than give me away to the police.
I must have stayed outside for half an hour, clinging like a frozen climber to the side of a mountain. All the time, I was crying as quietly as I could. Finally, I watched the police leave. They bundled my grandmother’s crumpled body into their van then threw my father in after her. I knew I would never see them again. The thought seemed to suck all the air from my lungs.
I was utterly alone and terrified about the future, but it seemed that my instinct to survive was strong. Even as the police van was driving away, I promised myself that I would toughen up. I would escape from the capital and find a way to flee from North Korea. I was not going to die. I was going to prove my dear father wrong.
FATIMA
When you’re blind, you don’t worry about the little details of life. It makes me cringe sometimes the way people get so hung up about stuff, especially their appearance. I don’t even know what I look like! People tell me I’m pretty, though maybe they’re just being kind. Whatever. I suppose my blindness makes it easier for me to focus on the important things - like what’s on the inside.
Something else people tell me is that I’m brave. The newspapers and the TV called us heroes for standing up to George Smith and his fascist thugs. To me it was just about doing the right thing. He wanted to terrorise the Muslim people who live around Cable Street and someone had to stop him.
That’s another thing I need to put straight. I didn’t just stand up for those people because I’m a Muslim too. It wouldn’t have mattered to me whether they were Hindus, Christians or whatever. George Smith was behaving like a bully and you have to stand up to bullies.
Which brings me to Jack. I knew that Georgie, Melissa and Omar would have freaked out if I’d told them what I had planned. But it just seemed the obvious thing to do. This Jack was tormenting my friend. He’d scared my lit
tle brother. I didn’t like that.
Jack had claimed to have a special interest in me, so I decided to reach out to him. I let him know that I was prepared for the two of us to meet, any time, anywhere. Like I say, Georgie, Melissa and Omar would have gone crazy if they’d known.
I suppose I expected him to contact me in advance, but that’s not how it happened. For once everyone had gone out. My father was at the restaurant, Sadiq was with his university friends, Omar had gone to take some food to Georgie, my mother was round at my aunt’s place. When we were all there the house seemed so cramped and noisy. Sometimes I liked being at home on my own.
I don’t know how he got inside, but we were not really very security conscious. My mother used to moan at my father because he kept a front door key on a string that you could pull through the letterbox. “Who would want to break in here?” my father would say to her. “We’ve got nothing worth stealing.”
I was in my bedroom when I heard someone moving downstairs. I assumed it was Omar. I was keen to hear from him how Georgie was coping. I stepped out onto the landing and called down the stairs.
“How is he, Omar? Did you take him that medicine for his cough?”
Silence. My family don’t play games with me. It’s not exactly cool to sneak up on someone who’s blind and shout, “Boo!”
Was it a burglar? I felt my legs go wobbly.
“You can take whatever you find, but we’ve got nothing, really. Have the telly if you can carry it!”
Then I heard him.
My name is Jack. I know that you can hear me. Please be afraid. . .!
I felt my way back into my bedroom and sat down on my bed. His footsteps sounded slowly up the stairs.
“Come on, Fatima, you said this is what you wanted,” I told myself as I fidgeted with the tassels on my bedspread.
He was standing just outside my door. I could hear him breathing.
So, you’re the famous girl who defeated the Fascists. I’m very pleased to meet you.
“Why don’t you talk normally to me?” I said.