by Joe Layburn
She became serious.
“You don’t look like a street kid. I can see from your hands you’ve never done any work. You haven’t had to scrabble in the mud for bits of grain that the farmers drop or beg for scraps from the army. What’s your name, princess?”
“Hyun-mi.”
“I’m Sun-joo. That’s what my parents called me. They’re gone now - thanks to our Comrade Kim Jong-il.”
She started to whistle the tune of No Motherland Without You.
“Do you know what? My own mother hated that song. And thinking about her makes me feel all sentimental.”
She narrowed her eyes and looked me up and down.
“If you like, I could be a bit of a mother to you, Hyun-mi. I’ll look after you, teach you how to survive on the streets. It’s a once in a lifetime offer. If you say no, I guarantee you’ll end up dead.”
What could I say? I nodded.
“Thank you, Sun-joo.”
“Precious as a jewel, according to my name. To be honest, it would be a better name for you, princess. It doesn’t really work for me.”
***
I’m sitting now in a plush hotel with a South Korean woman called Sun. She is going to rescue me from a beggar’s life in China. But it’s thanks to Sun-joo, my North Korean friend, that I’m alive at all.
She taught me how to steal rice from the market without having my ear twisted off by a farmer’s wife, or getting smashed in the ribs by some club-wielding peasant. She knew how to cheek the soldiers into throwing her a bone they’d finished gnawing on. And then she’d share it with me. Sun-joo was more precious to me than any jewel.
She seemed to know all the street kids we came across but I was the only one she was close to. And she cared for me as well as any mother. When I told her one day that I’d heard the voice of Fatima, a faraway girl, telling me to head for the border with China, Sun-joo didn’t laugh.
“Then it’s to the Chinese border we must go, princess.”
We walked at night along empty highways, caught a lift on a slow-moving train, then jumped off into thorny bushes when we were spotted by a guard. I was covered in scratches and so was Sun-joo, but nothing was broken. We lay there giggling.
“You see those stars?” I said as the train chugged away into the distance. “People in free countries can see them too.”
She lifted herself up on one elbow.
“You deserve to be free, princess. You shouldn’t have to live like this.”
Finally we reached the hills near the border town of Musan. The memory of that day will live with me forever - it plays in my head, again and again. I see Sun-joo and me together as though I am outside myself.
We are high up on a hillside looking down into the valley. Below us is the Tumen River. It does not shimmer under the cloudy sky. It just rolls along, flat and brown.
I squeeze Sun-joo’s hand.
“Doesn’t look too difficult to cross,” I say.
Then I spy the border guards patrolling with their guns. We are up so high they look like tiny green birds.
I am still feeling confident. The river stretches for miles in both directions. The guards cannot be everywhere and at night we can surely slip past them.
Sun-joo stares down into the valley. Her forehead is creased by a frown.
“So that’s the point where we have to swim for it?” she says.
“Only a little way. It’s not that wide.”
“And on the other side we’ll be free and we can eat all day and dance all night.”
“That’s right, Sun-joo.”
She is bubbling again now.
“And we’ll save up money and buy dresses like the embroidered ones you had in Pyongyang before they took your father away.”
“They’ll be the most beautiful dresses anyone ever wore, Sun-joo.”
Suddenly the sparkle is gone from her eyes. I shiver. It mustn’t be like this. I need her to keep making her jokes, to stay positive.
“Sun-joo, whatever is wrong?”
“I’ve got a bit of a problem I need to tell you about, princess.”
I feel my stomach flip with anxiety. I realise straightaway what her problem is. I hardly need to say it.
“You can’t swim, can you, Sun-joo?”
She looks irritated for a second, then she gives me a lopsided smile.
“No one ever taught me and I couldn’t see the point, anyway. Until now, that is.”
I know I am about to cry - something Sun-joo hates. If I ever weep, she feels she’s failed me.
“Then we’ll stay here in North Korea,” I whisper. “It’s not so terrible. Not now I’ve got you.”
She shakes her head.
“Oh, it is terrible. It’s about as terrible as it could possibly get. Which is why you will be swimming across that river tonight, if I have to throw you in the water myself.”
She pulls me towards her and we hug. I don’t know if I can bear it any more. If I cross the border, there will be no one in the world who will hold me like this. I can barely remember my mother, but my father and grandmother both loved to hug me. Soon there will be no one.
My face is wet with tears - my own and Sun-joo’s. Finally she pushes me away from her. She has never looked so serious.
“Don’t you dare get shot, Hyun-mi. Don’t drown. Don’t do anything but survive. I know this is all for your father and grandmother, but escape for me too.”
“I’ll try,” I say, “I promise.”
Then she gives me a brave smile that I’ll remember always.
“And don’t forget to send a postcard. If you address it to the Dear Leader, I’m sure he’ll see it gets passed on to me!”
GEORGE
I’d told Omar I wasn’t interested but he kept nagging me to watch it.
“You should see it, man. It’s been on TV twice today already.”
Secretly, I wasn’t sure I could cope with the sight of my mum and dad pleading with me to come home.
“You can come round our place and look at it there. Fatima would love you to, you know that.”
I pointed down at my grubby clothes.
“Look at the state of me, Omar. I haven’t had a bath in weeks. I stink. I look disgusting.”
He nodded.
“You do stink, man. No offence, but I can smell you from here. If you won’t come round, you’ve got to find a shop or somewhere that’s showing it.”
***
Tired and cold, I leant against the glass front of a brightly-lit store that sold TVs and other electrical goods. I knew it wouldn’t be long before a security man came out and shooed me off.
Almost all the televisions were tuned to the Celebrity Skin reality show. I could see Justin, the ex-singer of a once famous rock band, cavorting around in just a pair of tight gold trousers. He was beating his chest like an ape and making faces at the cameras. He might as well have been in a cage at the zoo.
A man in a dark blue uniform appeared as if on cue.
“Oi, kid! Move along will you? And don’t even think about dossing down in our doorway tonight, all right?
“It’s supposed to be a free country,” I said. “I’m not doing you any harm.”
“You’re bad for business, pal. Just move along or you’ll get my boot up your backside.”
I started moving off but called back over my shoulder.
“I don’t suppose you could spare us some change?”
“You’re right, I couldn’t. Now get lost.”
I shuffled, head down, past a seedy-looking pub and peered in through the windows. It was cheerless and almost empty, but the flickering television set above the bar had caught my eye. Then I saw them. My mum and dad were on the screen, sitting down in front of the journalists and press photographers.
I stepped inside the pub. A young barmaid was perched on a stool thumbing a text message into her mobile. She didn’t even look up as I slipped into a dimly-lit alcove and sat down. She couldn’t see me hiding in the shadows, but I could s
ee and hear the television.
Dad spoke first. He looked tired and stressed but he still knew how to use the media.
“Thanks for turning out today, folks,” he said hoarsely. “I know a lot of you have got some strong opinions about me. But this isn’t about politics. I’m not here today as the former leader of the British Fascist Party, I’m here as a father desperate to be reunited with his son.”
The cameras flashed. Mum started sobbing into a screwed up tissue.
“I’ve made some mistakes in my life. But the biggest ones have cost me my relationship with the son I love.”
He stopped addressing the journalists and turned to face the TV camera.
“Georgie, if you’re watching, you need to know I’ve changed. I’ve not become some bearded, sandal-wearing left-winger, but you and your friends have made me think about the things I believe in and what I stand for. I wouldn’t go back to the Party now, even if they’d have me. I no longer share their views.”
He put his arm around my mum and pulled her closer to him.
“The most important thing, Georgie, is to get you back home. I’ll do whatever it takes for that to happen.”
“We love you, son, we miss you so much,” Mum blurted tearfully.
The camera flashes exploded like fireworks.
I found that I was crying too.
The news report finished with a picture of me - in my school uniform, hair clean and combed. The face didn’t look much like the images I’d been seeing reflected in shop windows. I left the pub unnoticed.
As I stepped onto the street, I heard Fatima’s voice in my head.
I believe he has changed, Georgie - he’s not the man he was. Isn’t it time for you to go back home now?
I found myself nodding even though she was miles away.
Yes, Fatima, it’s time.
***
I was sitting at a bus shelter, trying to decipher the graffiti, when his shiny new Range Rover pulled up. He didn’t shut the door behind him, just jumped down onto the pavement and rushed towards me. He was wearing this sheepskin coat that I always said made him look like a dodgy football agent. When he pulled me to his chest, I breathed in the aftershave, the shower gel, the scent I always recognised as making him my dad.
I thought he might say, “Who loves ya?” I wondered if he’d tease me about the way I smelled. But he just held me close for a long time. A bus stopped beside the shelter and bored-looking people stared out at us. An old, white-haired couple got off and the bus drove away. Still he held on to me. Finally he spoke.
“I thought I’d lost you, son. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you now. I promise.”
***
It was a long drive home. The heater was turned right up and my bones began to feel less cold. We talked and talked. A lot of what we said was heavy and emotional, but we laughed together too. As we neared our house I remembered something Omar had told me. It was Fatima’s latest plan.
“You know you said you’d do anything to get me back home? Well, there’s a favour I need to ask. It’s not exactly a deal-breaker, but it would mean a lot to me if you’d come through on it.”
He glanced across at me.
“Whatever you want, Georgie. If I have to go on TV and renounce fascism I’ll do it. Though I guess I already did that today, didn’t I?”
“I need you to pay for a plane ticket.”
He nodded, eyes fixed on the road ahead.
“OK. Where do you want to go? Can we all come with you - make it a holiday?”
“It’s not for me. It’s for this girl who lives in South Korea. Originally, she’s from North Korea but she escaped through China and now she’s in the South. Her name’s Hyun-mi.”
I caught him smothering a grin with his hand.
“Hyun-mi, indeed. Did you meet her on the internet or something? Is she like a Thai bride?”
I didn’t smile.
“She’s a friend of Fatima’s with an amazing story. And Fatima’s making it her life’s work to get it known by as many people as possible.”
He rolled his lower lip.
“I thought what Fatima did to me in Cable Street was her life’s work.”
“Apparently not. She’s on a new mission.”
He took one hand off the steering wheel and patted the coat pocket where he carried his wallet.
“So all I’ve got to do is shell out for an air fare and you’ll come home for good?”
“Yeah. Absolutely.”
“Some people might find it ironic that I’ve spent so long trying to keep foreigners out of this country and now I’ll be flying one in here. But. . .”
“Forget all that, Dad. Will you do it or not?”
He flicked on the indicator as we turned at last into our driveway.
“Consider it done, Georgie boy.”
***
Later, I slid under the warm bathwater so that it covered my head, and blew a stream of bubbles to the surface. I’d needed two water changes and a lot of scrubbing to get myself clean. Outside the door, I could hear my mum fussing. I think she was worried I might climb out the bathroom window and disappear again.
“You all right, darling? You’re going to dissolve if you stay in there much longer.”
On the radiator she’d left a fluffy white bathrobe and my pyjamas. Perched near the taps were an empty bottle of Coke and a bowl that had once held five scoops of ice cream and some chocolate sauce.
“Can I get you anything else to eat? Just say the word.”
My sister Albion, who I admit had seemed delighted to see me, was getting irritable. Perhaps the novelty of having me here was wearing off.
“Is he ever coming out of there? I’m going round Lulu’s and I need my make-up.”
“Alb, he hasn’t had a good long soak in ages. Anyway, I don’t see why you have to get all made up just to go round your friend’s.”
“Mum, don’t start, all right?”
It felt good to be home. I could hardly bear to tell them I’d be off again as soon as Hyun-mi got the documents so she could travel to England. I doubted it would take long. Fatima had contacts all over the world. And as I knew from Cable Street, Fatima could make the impossible happen.
HYUN-MI
For someone who’d never expected to leave North Korea, I’d become quite a traveller. Fatima had always promised that we’d meet one day and now I was jetting towards her.
I knew very little about London. I suppose I expected the same culture shock I’d had when I first reached South Korea’s capital, Seoul. It had been impossible for me to take it in: the soaring, silver skyscrapers; giant, pulsing video screens; and, everywhere, restaurants serving mouth-watering food to people who’d never known hunger.
I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but South Korea was so fast-moving, so modern that I felt it was racing away from me and I’d never be able to catch up. The Dear Leader always claimed South Koreans were much worse off than us. But that was just another of his lies. Our cousins in the South were richer than I could have imagined. Though my family had been part of the elite in North Korea, I now felt like a poor relation.
The organisation that had got me out of China found a family for me to stay with in Seoul. They were kind, but a bit formal. I missed my dearest friend, Sun-joo, a free-spirit who had no time for rules and formalities. How guilty I felt that I was living in luxury. The best Sun-joo could hope for was to stay out of the prison camps.
Across the aisle of the plane, a stressed-out mother was trying to get her small son to eat the food the air hostess had brought. He was like an angel, with blonde hair and blue eyes. I hadn’t seen many Europeans and I couldn’t stop looking at him. Finally, he put a spoonful into his mouth, pulled a face then spat it out. I know he was only little but it made me so angry. I thought of street children in North Korea who spent whole days just grubbing for grains of rice in the dirt.
The mother caught my eye. She said something in English that I didn’t understand. I just sm
iled back.
I picked up my bag from the carousel and walked out into the arrivals hall at London Heathrow. There seemed to be hundreds of people all staring at me. Some held signs that I couldn’t read. I began to panic. Fatima had promised she’d be here to meet me, but which face was hers? Suddenly, her thought-voice was inside my head, bubbling like a clear mountain stream.
Hyun-mi, you’re here at last. I’ve waited so long for this moment.
Ahead of me I saw her, a delicate looking girl in a headscarf. She was next to a skinny boy who I took to be her brother, Omar. He was waving and beckoning me towards them. It was only then I realised that Fatima could not see me.
I didn’t know you were blind.
There are worse hardships, Hyun-mi. I consider myself a very lucky person, especially now you’re here.
We hugged for a long time and I thought back to the day I’d swum across the Tumen River to freedom. Fatima had encouraged me onwards, away from the border guards’ bullets. I remembered the long nights in China, curled up under a blanket in that half-finished building. Fatima’s soothing words had been like a mother’s lullaby to me. I’d always expected that I would cry if I ever did meet her. But I found instead that I was smiling.
We caught an underground train into London. The network went on endlessly with what seemed like hundreds of stops. In North Korea, my father and I had ridden once on Pyongyang’s two-line metro. I thought of him and a wave of sorrow washed over me. How we would have loved to travel the world together.
I’d grown up in a country where everyone looked and thought pretty much the same. London was totally different. All colours and cultures were here. And the fashions! A warrior-like boy got into our carriage - he had metal rings dangling from his ears and nose, and studs in his forehead too. I just stared, mouth open, but no one else seemed to notice him.
A tall, smiley black man with a large woollen hat got on the train with his guitar just as the doors were closing. He played noisily and sang off-key. Again, nobody appeared to care. Try that on the Pyongyang Metro, I thought. You’d be dragged away and beaten by the police.
At last we reached our stop. Fatima took hold of my arm and we got up to leave. I smiled at her, though, of course, she could not see it.