Jia: A Novel of North Korea

by Hyejin Kim

  I once saw a little boy boast of his talents in a loud voice as he grabbed the clothes of passersby. He insisted he could put needles through his ears, and some people stopped in their tracks to look at him. He produced two rusty, long needles and slid one through each ear, though his face didn't show any pain. When a young woman took a closer look, she cried out, "My God, look at them-his ears are covered with holes and scabs." All at once, the spectators pushed forward to look at his ears, then in consternation they left without giving him any money. Some women gave him bread or rice, out of compassion. The food seemed to satisfy him.

  Walking through a street market to the hotel early one morning, I saw a small kko jebi being dragged away by two policemen. He twisted with all his plight to get out of their hands, wailing, "Sir, I'm not kkotjebi! I have parents waiting for me at home. I need to go back!"

  The policeman holding his two legs under his arm snarled, "Cut it out, you stinky brat, I've been watching you for days." The other held the boy's neck at his waist, pressing it hard, until the boy's face turned red and he stopped resisting. His body looked like a small tree, carried between two men. No one in the market paid the slightest attention.

  A familiar voice, shouting at the top of her lungs, caught my attention. She cried out at the people passing her food stall, "Three rolls for ten won! You can't find them cheaper!" A stain spread over the front of her grimy whitish shirt, attracting my gaze. She had been one of my teachers at the orphanage. She was nice to everyone; sometimes I even slept in her room. She had taught sex education to the girls when we gathered in her room-things we couldn't learn from other teachers. In those days, she was pretty, passionate, and determined to bridge the distance between teacher and student.

  The year I left the orphanage, she moved to a small school outside Pyongyang. The other girls and I wrote a farewell letter and shed tears because we knew we'd never see her again. I couldn't have imagined I'd run into her in a street market; she had aged so much in just a few years.

  "Excuse me, Teacher Oh?" Pushing through the passersby, I approached her and sized up her brown, oval face; I was sure who it was when I saw the small mole under her lip. Teacher Oh fell silent; I thought perhaps she hadn't recognized me.

  "Do you remember me, Teacher Oh?" I asked, getting closer to let her see my face.

  She smiled. "How can I forget you? Little dancing girl..."

  She grabbed my wrists and held them lightly, as she used to do whenever she asked me to dance and sing in front of my classmates. I reminded her of "Blood Sea," the women's emancipation song: how I would sing it in front of the class, while she sang with me from the back of the classroom with flushed cheeks.

  On that day, she closed her tiny stand for several hours.

  Like almost everyone, Teacher Oh had two jobs. In the morning, she taught students at a small school, where half of the students didn't come regularly. In the afternoon, she came to the market to sell bread. She didn't have time to bake it herself, so she bought it from old ladies who baked in their houses but couldn't compete with the loud voices of other vendors. She didn't make much money at the market, but it was better than just staying in the house and not even trying to escape her poverty.

  Holding my hands, she smiled bitterly and said, "I had no idea that selling things to other people could be so hard. But what else can I do! I already sold all my beloved books."

  She had been an ideal teacher. She was honest and didn't abuse her authority like other teachers. She had taught Kim Il Sung's books passionately, and we had studied together as friends would.

  "You know, Jia, life can change in a flash, or lead you in an unexpected direction. Nothing is as precious as life. Trust me, I have seen death with my own eyes..." Her eyes looked much older because of the deep wrinkles that ran from their edges.

  She continued, "My husband and daughter died on the same day. How could I have imagined such a hell? My youngest daughter always clung to my skirt, complaining about how noisy her stomach was, and one day, after she came back from the school, she seemed to have no energy left. But, you know, people are all like that now, so I didn't care. I was sick of hearing her complain-it only made me hungrier. I was tired of telling her that our Dear Leader would soon solve all the problems. The longer the situation continued, the more restless I became. When I saw my neighbors heading to the markets and not to their usual jobs, I knew I should do something too. But I couldn't leave the country and become a capitalist merchant: my life, devoted to the Party and its ideology, would have lost all meaning. I ignored my husband's suggestion to start selling our goods. I mocked him and told him his brain was being rotted by hunger."

  Just then, two kkot ebi ran past us, like bullets shot out of a gun. Behind them, a young woman, who looked much younger than me, shouted, "Damn you! I'll kill you next time I see you."

  Teacher Oh stopped speaking. Her eyes followed the kkot ebi, who held new shoes in their hands and disappeared around a corner. She heaved a deep and long sigh.

  "When my daughter came back from school, she was quiet and spoke in a low voice. `Mom, I'm sleepy,' she said. `I slept all day in class. I didn't know until the teacher woke me up that class already finished. On the way home, I walked half asleep. I almost sank down on the ground, and Fin still sleepy.' Then she fell asleep in a corner of the room, and died. My husband and I realized it only after several hours. He went crazy. He cried out, "How can be this possible? My daughter just died in front of me. What a bad father I am! We killed our own daughter." Then he fell down and died on the spot. In just one day, I had to send both my daughter and husband to the other world. I didn't cry. I didn't have time. I had to take care of two other kids. I decided not to be stuck in the house anymore. That's why I came here and why I'm shouting to sell one more piece of bread every day."

  We looked at the other vendors, yelling at the top of their voices next to us.

  "I would sell clothes or shoes like them if I were handy, but I can't make them." Teacher Oh sighed. "What's worse, I'm not smart like the other women here, who hang around the brokers. They get goods at low prices from those brokers."

  While she spoke, she kept urging me to eat her bread.

  "I'm not attractive anymore, I don't have a smooth tongue. I know how to handle kids, not adults."

  When I was about to leave, she stuffed three pieces of bread in my pocket.

  "But, I'm the luckiest and happiest woman in this place. My ex-students help me. Sometimes, they bring clothes from China and give them to me for very little. I never thought I would be obliged to my little students like this."

  Saying good bye, she gave me a wide smile. ` Jia, my life hasn't been so bad! After you leave, I will smile and think about those days. How cute you were! What a terrible teacher I was!"

  I bought most of her bread, claiming that I was about to buy lunch for my coworkers in the market. On that day, my coworkers had to fill their stomachs with Teacher Oh's bread.

  Sun's Story

  un was my neighbor. Her flat was right next to mine, i in the rusty apartment complex I had been living in for the past few years. Sometime after moving in, I met her mother, Aunt Cho, in the hall. She asked about my age, my job-all the usual questions that arise when people meet each other for the first time.

  "Why don't you live with your parents?"

  I answered instantly: "They're dead. I've never seen them."

  "Oh..." She nodded her head slowly, looking ill at ease, and let me pass by.

  Whenever Aunt Cho stopped by my house after that, she would look around my kitchen and then disappear. Several minutes later, she would come back with dishes in her hands, and one of them always held kimchi.

  "I worked in the Nutrition Department before I had Sun, so I know how to handle cooking. You can trust my food, and you should gain at least five kilograms."

  I couldn't decline her kindness-her kimchi was the best I had ever eaten. With each bite of the pickled cabbage, I felt my stomach grow so clean and cool. I b
rought any cookies or snacks I could get in the hotel to her house, and though I insisted she try them, Aunt Cho always put them aside, saying, "Sun might like these more than me; she'll be back next week. I'm sure she'll like you a lot-she always wanted a sister."

  Sun was 19 years old, with white skin and red lips. When I finally met her, I couldn't believe that she had just returned from three months of volunteering in the countryside before graduating from a teaching school; it seemed her skin had special protection against the sun. She was a giddy girl, and she followed me around, talking about everything she saw and heard. We liked to go to the street market to look at cosmetics. We couldn't afford to buy anything; we just went to be together and enjoy the uproarious atmosphere.

  Sun's favorite topic was her boyfriend, Gun. She had met him while walking with her friends in the Kaeson Youth Park, on a Saturday. Sun said the day was brighter than usual, or maybe the significance of her first encounter with Gun made her memory of it brighter. She and her friends enjoyed walking there more than in any other park in Pyongyang because it was usually full of young people. A dark-skinned man with thick eyebrows had approached the group and smiled at Sun. She said she liked his bright and even teeth. Most young girls didn't like guys with swarthy skin, because it reminded them of laborers, but Sun said Gun was different. He had great, sharp eyes, and he worked in the dancing and singing propaganda unit of a big factory. When I saw him the first time, I couldn't help but understand why Sun praised him.

  Sun was happy and dreamed of a future shared with her boyfriend. When she became a teacher in an elementary school, she loved talking about her students. She devoted all her energy to then and recorded each student's characteristics in a notebook.

  "You know what? I heard such a funny thing from my students today," she said, sitting in my apartment one afternoon. "They said they like middle-aged female teachers the best. You know why? Because young single female teachers like me don't have to cook and take care of their own children and husbands. And we don't wash our clothes, because our mothers do it. In the morning we have only to do our makeup and eat the breakfast prepared by our mothers. So we have a lot of energy left when we come to school. But middle-aged female teachers have to do these chores every day for their families; their hands are never dry of water. When they beat the students, it doesn't hurt, because they don't have any energy left. But we have a lot of energy, so our palms are the harshest. You can't imagine how cute they were when they said that."

  Sun's family was not untouched by the famine of 1995: her students started to skip school to go beg for food at the market. She and the other teachers searched the markets after class, trying to persuade their students to return to school. She came home every night bone tired. I loved her. I watched her tenderly, as my sister had watched over me.

  In the summer of 1997, I didn't see Sun for several weeks. I missed her, but I decided not to begrudge her time with others. Then, one night, I heard her call my name, and when I opened my window, she was standing outside, like a ghost.

  "What happened, Sun?"

  "He's gone. He disappeared without saying anything to me"

  She wore a thin shirt, though the night was cool, and her face was practically blue. I took her hand and led her into my room. I watched her as she cried quietly with her legs folded under her and her hands on her knees. I thought it must be the worst time in her life. I didn't say anything; I just let her cry.

  At length, she told me that Gun and his family were gone in one night, and no one knew where. No!-everybody knew, but no one would say. The steps Gun's family took one day might be what other neighbors were driven to the next. Sun said that the shoe factory where Gun's parents worked had closed several months before, and Gun was trying to sell their household goods in the street market. Gun's older brother had died at age 21 in an accident while performing military duties, and his death had driven Gun's parents to despair. Since then, his parents' health had been Gun's priority.

  Sun couldn't understand why Gun hadn't mentioned leaving. A couple of days earlier, he had asked for a picture of them together. She was devastated that he hadn't shared his plans with her.

  I didn't see Sun much after that night. I couldn't offer consolation, and I couldn't blame Gun: such was our situation and our lives. Time for despair could be better used looking for a way to survive. All I hoped for Sun was that she would forget about Gun as soon as possible. As time went by, Sun would learn what I already knew too well: the more you miss people who have already left you, the more pain you feel.

  Several weeks later, I ran into Sun in the hall of the building, and she smiled at me. I asked her to come by my apartment whenever she had some free time. She didn't seem to have changed too much-she was still cheerfulbut as we chatted she sometimes lost her train of thought and grew silent. I thought time would solve her problems.

  Late one night, she came over, and I noticed that she had become emaciated.

  "Can I stay with you tonight?" Sun asked with a low voice. Her eyes were unusually shiny.

  I pulled her into my room with delight; I had been afraid she was avoiding me, and it was wonderful to have her in my apartment again. We didn't sleep much-I just held her hand under the blanket while we talked, as my sister used to. Sun talked a lot, laughing unnaturally hard, and told me about how she and Gun had dreamed of their future together, with a house and children.

  Suddenly, her eyes filled with fear. "I'm afraid, sister. Nothing seems sure in this world. I still don't understand why Gun didn't discuss anything with me. Before he left, he even talked about our wedding. We were going to take pictures on Mansu Hill-we thought the gold of Kim 11 Sung's statue in the background would make the pictures more colorful. But he left the next day. Do you think he left because he didn't want to marry me? Did I pressure him too much? I really didn't care about the wedding; that wasn't important. He misunderstood me."

  I smoothed her hair. "Sometimes people can't be together forever, even though they would like to be. Don't blame him too much. There must be some reason he had to leave that way."

  We cried together. I cried for my grandparents and my sister. Since the night before Seunggyu had left for the countryside, I couldn't get them off my mind. In my dream, I saw their bodies drifting on filthy floodwater. Seunggyu and his soldiers pushed them away, cursing then with cold eyes.

  Sun cried for Gun. She couldn't stop blaming him, but she prayed for his safety. I consoled myself with the thought that everyone in this world had their own sadness to contend with, and ours might not be the worst.

  The next day, Sun was gone. Her mother said Sun had left to see relatives, and I didn't ask her anything more, though I could hear sobbing through the walls. To her parents, Sun was a treasure. They had her when they were both over 40, after they had given up on ever having a child. They had waited for her for 20 years and lost her in just one day.

  The previous night, in my room, Sun had smiled at me and laughed more than usual. I knew that she had decided to look for Gun in China, and I also knew there was nothing I could do to stop her; I couldn't even tell her I knew of her plans. I felt deeply sad. Gradually, I was losing every familiar face around me.

  I never expected to hear from her again.

  Gun's Story

  everal months passed, and the signs of famine persisted ► in the city. Winter made people even more desperate. We were adjusting to the possibility that family members, relatives, neighbors-people with whom we had exchanged smiles hours before-might disappear without a trace.

  In factories and offices, lunch was no longer provided. Whether we worked or not hardly mattered, as showing up for a job often didn't result in food or wages. Kim Jong Il's regime emphasized that we could overcome this hardship by working together, but words do not fill an empty stomach, and the search for food drove people to desperate measures.

  One winter evening, I went to bed early, and was staring at the ceiling through the darkness. The government shut off power to residences
at 8:30 P.M., and the city plunged into impenetrable darkness. In those days of darkness, and with Sun gone, I was spending more nights at the hotel than at home, out of loneliness. The hotel was empty, but the manager was ordered to keep lights on in 20 rooms to make the city look a little alive. That night, however, I thought I should return home; I felt guilty, having left my room empty for several days. My apartment was not any bigger than Aunt Ann's, but somehow being alone made me feel the cold more keenly, so I tried to fall asleep as quickly as possible. Just as I was drifting off, I heard a cautious knock at my door. At first I thought it was a rat, struggling to find food, but the sound became louder and more insistent. Eventually, I got up and put an ear to the door.

  "Jia! Jia!" a low voice came through.

  "Who is it?" I was afraid. Nobody had come by my home in the wee hours since Sun had gone. "Who is it?" I rasped again.

  "Jia, it's me. It's Gun."

  I tripped over myself struggling to pull some clothes on.

  "Jia. Please let me in."

  I opened the door a crack, but the light was off, and I couldn't see anything. It hadn't worked for many days. After the electricity shortage, the government had supplied power from 5:00 to 8:00 A.M. and from 6:00 to 11:00 P.M., but even that soon became irregular. They would only supply electricity to apartments whose residents gave them extra money. My building didn't want to pay extra money; people relied on kerosene lamps.

  Before my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I was as good as blind.

  "It's Gun. Don't you remember my voice?"

  I could hear the desperation in his voice, and opened the door at once; a black figure rushed into the room. When my eyes finally adjusted, I recognized him.

  "Heavens! What are you doing here? Didn't you leave?" I seated him on the sofa, but he dropped to the floor, heaving a sigh of relief as he saw my fear dissolve.

  "I came back for Sun, but there was no way to contact her except through you. I waited for her half the day, hiding on the other side of the building, but I didn't see her. Could you bring her here?"