Jia: A Novel of North Korea

by Hyejin Kim

  Sangwon growled at them, like an animal.

  The man put his hands in his pockets and whistled to his friends to leave. "You can think about it until the next time. Bye, Sangwon. Take care of that leg."

  As the men departed, people exhaled sighs of relief. I was frightened; they said they didn't force people, but it was clearly a threat. I looked at Sangwon's leg, the man's suggestion ringing in my head.

  Sangwon looked at me angrily and said, "Don't even think about it. Don't trust them, they are scoundrels. Everything they say is pure trash. They work for their own greedy stomachs, not for us. They sell women every day."

  I rested my hand on his head and assured Sangwon I wasn't taken in by their suggestion. But I was concerned as I looked around the cave. It was a temporary shelter for all of us. None of us knew where we could go or how we would make a living elsewhere, but we also knew the cave wasn't safe. Sangwon and I had made plans to move on in a platter of weeks. We needed more time to get over our physical problems. Sangwon suggested we go to a big city, where it would be easier to hide our identities and to adjust. We decided to depend on each other until it was best to separate. His leg was looking better as the weather warmed up, but the man's warning that Sangwon's body would fall apart stayed with me.

  Several days later, the men returned early in the morning, before anyone had left for town. They didn't harass me, but I didn't like their smiles as they shuffled around, full of entitlement.

  One asked me, "How is it living here?"

  I didn't respond.

  "Tell me what you did over there." He came closer.

  "You didn't run away just because of hunger-did you commit a crime? Do you have some secret you can't tell us?" He sat in front of me. I took a step back and averted my face.

  Sangwon, who had just awoken, tried to sit up. I patted his shoulder and said to the man, "It's none of your business."

  "I know that," the intruder said. "I'm just asking. I want to help you."

  "I can help myself."

  Another of the men shouted to him, "Why do you bother her? Come over here."

  A woman who had arrived at the cave when we did was speaking to the men privately. One of them touched her shoulder and said, "That's a good decision. You won't regret it." Then they took her to a corner of the cave and spoke to her in a low voice; she nodded and went back to her place. She quietly packed her belongings and sat down, avoiding the eyes of the people watching her. She told her story to the woman who slept next to her.

  She had crossed the border carrying her two-year-old daughter on her back. She said that as she was crossing the river, something yanked on her hair, but she didn't turn back. After she got across, she took her daughter down off her back and found that she was dead. The thing pulling on her hair was her drowning daughter. When she arrived at the cave, her spirits were low. She was a gazelle-eyed woman who seemed unable to endure the hardship. She spent her days in silence, watching the ceiling. Sometimes, at night, we could hear her muffled crying. No one could console her.

  The cave dwellers were used to such tragedies; many of them had similar stories themselves. They tried to ignore her and sleep, as they were loath to be reminded of their own sadness.

  In the days that followed, people went back to their own business, working on the outside and trying to save for their futures. Nobody knew how much money others kept and what kind of food they had in their backpacks. We all had our secret hiding places. It was the strictest rule not to touch other people's belongings.

  The morning after the unwelcome visitors left, as people were getting ready to leave for the day, Kangmin called to Sangwon, "Did you know there is a party in town today?"

  As soon as Sangwon heard, he sprang to his feet eagerly. "Really? Are you sure? I haven't heard that."

  "Today is that grandfather's birthdayin the Zhang family. I'm sure you can get a lot of food; the old guy especially likes you, doesn't he?" Kangmin smiled.

  Sangwon looked doubtful. "He didn't mention it when I stopped by his house last week-that's unlike him."

  Bangmu, who was always with Kangmin, spoke up, "He's an old guy. At his age it is easy to forget things. Why don't you go? I'm sure they've started the party by now."

  Sangwon was already putting his clothes on as he spoke. "Let's go. We can get a lot of food." He drew me by the arm.

  Bangmu put his hand on Sangwon's shoulder and said, "Why don't you go with me? She can't carry a lot of food, but I can help you. We'll bring back a load of food and have a party here. In the meantime, Kangmin and Jia can find bush clover so we can cook rice and scorched rice water."

  Sangwon grabbed his coat, "Let's go then. Sister, I will be back soon. Try to find as much clover as possible. I'm going to bring a lot of food so all of us can eat to our hearts' content." He proudly tapped his chest.

  They left at a trot. Sangwon looked like a little squirrel; his limping was a piteous sight.

  Watching him leave, Kangmin said from behind me, "Let's go pick some branches. I know where to find bush clover."

  Kangmin walked really fast. I liked him; he never said much, but everyone trusted him. People in the cave didn't talk about their past lives. Sangwon said people used to speak freely about their work back home, and why they had decided to cross the river. But then some were arrested by the North Korean police, and they divulged other people's secrets to lessen their punishment. After that, people exchanged warm greetings in the cave, but no one shared their past.

  As we climbed down the mountain, however, Kangmin told me about himself. He said he had to support his seven brothers and sisters in North Korea. He was a soldier who had firmly trusted in communism and still believed the ideology. He had a nine-year-old brother who was born blind but was full of energy and ambition. One day, his brother disappeared-he went outside by himself and was so hungry he ate some poisonous grass without realizing it. After that, he couldn't speak or hear at all; he lost every connection to the world. That's when Kangmin had decided to cross the border, in the hope of saving some money and eventually bringing his brothers and sisters back with him to China.

  Suddenly, he stopped and looked around.

  "Is this the place where we can find bush clover?" I asked.

  "Yeah. I think so...hold on."

  He whistled. A moment later, someone whistled back.

  The three men who had visited the cave earlier suddenly appeared through the bushes. They approached us. One smiled and said, "Oh, what a coincidence! Sangwon'syoungmother! "

  With them was a woman I hadn't seen before. She wore thick makeup. Her long hair, parted in the middle, hung down to her waist, and her tiny, button-shaped eyes contrasted sharply with her long eyebrows, which swept back to her hairline.

  She walked up to me, ahead of the men. "Is this the girl?" she asked.

  The man who had threatened me walked up behind her. "Right. What do you think?"

  "It could be big money," she answered.

  "See? I told you. It was worth the trip, right?"

  He laughed, satisfied. She gazed into my face and then eyed me from top to bottom as she walked around me.

  "You guys did a good job this time."

  My head was reeling. I turned to Kangmin, who was standing apart from us. His eyes were evasive. He murmured, "It won't be so bad for you-it will be better than this place. I'm doing this for you... and for my brothers and sisters. Please remember that you are saving several lives. I promise I'll take care of Sangwon." His voice wobbled.

  Sometimes, in life, people cross unexpectedly into a different world. For me, such a crossing happened in that moment. I had often imagined how I would react to difficult situations, how I would handle myself, whether I would be brave or meek. But a scenario such as this had not figured into my wildest speculations.

  I was frozen, and there was no sound in my throat. I tried to reach for something familiar; I turned to Kangmin's face one more time, but he would not meet my eyes.

  Someone tossed
a lump wrapped in newspaper to him. "That's for you and Bangmu."

  Kangmin didn't pick it up right away. Like me, he was frozen. I wanted to ask him what was going on-perhaps he could explain it all and everything would be resolved. Surely there had been a mistake. I took a step toward him, but one of the men grabbed my arm and the strange woman covered my mouth and nose with a white cloth. I saw Kangmin's face lose focus, and again I tried to reach out my hand. The last thing I saw was his cold, hollow eyes. I struggled to keep them in sight, fighting to keep my eyelids open, but his eyes swirled and grew bigger until they were consuming my whole body. I passed out.

  Part 4

  That Woman

  ` ore than 20 women lived in the large room where I _ -was dumped. Huge men patrolled the halls to keep us inside. Occasionally, one of the women looked pitifully at me and said, "Time will solve everything." There were no bruises on my skin, but my muscles and bones ached. One of the thugs brought me food twice a day.

  I lay facedown in a corner of the room that first night, wishing I could close my eyes forever, wishing myself back to the cave.

  When I woke up, I was inside a large car, my body crumpled into the back seat, my hands and legs tied together with rope. Looking behind me, I found the face of the woman whose baby had drowned in the river. She smiled awkwardly at me; the dimples on both sides of her chin carved themselves into deep, bashful crescents.

  One of the men noticed that I was awake and patted my shoulder. "If you'd been more like her, we wouldn't have had to treat you so harshly," he said. "It's okay now. Take it easy-it's a long trip. If you're not comfortable, let me know, and I can loosen the rope. Or I can tie your hands and legs separately."

  I tried to remember what had happened. I recalled Kangmin taking me to a hill to find clover branches; he was unusually talkative that day. We were supposed to have a party in the cave. And then we ran into those people, and here I was stuck in a strange car. I thought about Sangwon. He must be back from town by now-he must be looking for me.

  "How long did I sleep?" I asked the deep-dimpled woman. She answered cautiously, "A long time... We thought you might be dead." The man chimed in, "You slept for more than ten hours. I didn't know that medicine was so powerful." He snickered.

  "Where am I going? What did you do to me?" My anger and the cigarette smoke inside the car drew dry coughs from my throat.

  "We already told you several times we want to introduce you to a better world," the man said. "We felt sorry for you. You'll see how exciting our place is, how much better life is, and if you don't like it, you can leave. Look at her-" He smoothed the deep-dimpled woman's hair, and she lowered her head. "See how smart she is! You two should look to each other. From now on, we're a family. Welcome to our family." He looked much younger than Kangmin; the pimples on his neck turned dark pink with excitement. One of the other men began snickering. They all had the same army hairstyle, shiny black leather jacket, and loose thin gray pants.

  A woman sitting next to the driver in the front seat turned back and warned him, "Save your breath, you talk too much. I have a headache now. Why do you chatter on like a housewife? Act like a man!" It was the woman who had accosted me on the hill when I was with Kangmin. She was wearing sunglasses even inside the car, but I recognized her.

  I thought it must be past midnight, but when someone lowered the window to throw out a cigarette butt, night became day. Fields, mountains, houses, and trees appeared and disappeared quickly.

  Kangmin's words echoed in my brain; it had all been set up. Could he really believe this was best for me? Would he really take care of Sangwon? Sangwon always said he wanted to grow up to be like Kangmin. He joked that he'd be much cooler than Kangmin, but never as hairy.

  I wondered how Kangmin would explain my sudden disappearance to him.

  "We have new sisters here! "

  After several hours of driving, we were let out of the car into a narrow alley stinking of trash and food. The area was dense with buildings, and we were apparently behind one of them. Taking a bunch of keys from her handbag, the woman I saw on the hill opened a small door, and two men dragged us into a five-story brown building. Inside, it was dark and quiet; our footsteps reverberated through the hallway.

  As soon as we were let in, without a single word the woman left. The men pushed us into the elevator and took us to a room on the top floor, announcing our arrival to its occupants.

  Most of the other women were sleeping, and those who weren't didn't even look up. One of the men behind us said, "Get some rest. We'll call you later." He looked around the room and spoke loudly, "Hey, take care of these twothey don't know anything about this place. Treat them like younger sisters."

  No one answered, but then he didn't wait for a reply. The door closed and I heard his footsteps tapping down the hall.

  A woman with a husky voice pointed her chin in our direction and muttered, "Don't forget to take your shoes off" There was not enough space to lie down, so we sat right next to the door. The woman with the husky voice advised, "Rest now, while you can. You'll be busy soon enough."

  She had big, flat, flesh-colored bandages on both eyebrows. I shot a sidelong glance at them, and she turned toward me, thrusting her face close to mine.

  "I can take these off today," she said. She pointed to her right eyebrow with her index finger.

  "What happened to your eyebrows? Were you hurt?" I asked, leaning away from her face, which had come too near to mine.

  She sat up and opened her small black bag. "No. I had plastic surgery. Actually, I got my eyebrows tattooed once several years ago, because drawing eyebrows on every day was too much of a hassle. They looked good at first, but then they began to spread out, like hairy bugs. So gross! I couldn't stand them anymore. So, a week ago, a plastic surgeon cut the fleshiness under my eyebrows a little bit. Today I can take these bandages off. Isn't that fast? The technology for cosmetic surgery is getting better. If you want to use the hospital, let me know. It's so cheap and so professional. But there is a long wait, even for my simple surgery; I waited for two months."

  I listened to her blankly. She looked a little bit older than the other women there, owing mainly to her high, protruding cheekbones. She smiled and unpeeled part of the bandage on the right eyebrow to show me. "See! It looks fine. Even the wrinkles above my eyes are gone after cutting out that useless flesh. I couldn't wait a week, I was always checking. It looks even better than yesterday."

  I blinked. There was really nothing in the place where her eyebrow should have been. Instead, I saw a scar stitched with a thread. It scared me, but I said, "Yes. It looks fine. But it would be strange not to have eyebrows."

  She replaced the bandage and looked at herself in the small mirror of her compact. "It's okay. I'll tattoo them on again. But a different shape than I had before. I was sick of those." She picked up a magazine and murmured, "I'm searching for suitable eyebrows. Apparently, crescent eyebrows are in style right now."

  Soon, I noticed that every woman's face around the room looked artificial. They spent so much time looking at themselves in their mirrors. Some of the women spoke Korean, and I could tell from their accents that they were from North Korea. I knew they'd noticed mine too, though they gave no sign. Others spoke Chinese and Korean together. Listening in on snippets of their conversations, I tried to figure out if my suspicions were true.

  They slept during the day and worked every night, always wearing strong fragrances and showy makeup and dresses. It wasn't hard to guess what my new job was to be. "Please be seated."

  When I entered the smoky office, the woman from the hill gestured to me to sit on a glossy leather sofa covered with a tiger skin. She was peering at me from behind a huge desk that made her small figure look somewhat absurd. I remained standing.

  She got straight to the point. "So. What did you do over there?"

  I stared at her. "I want to go back. You kidnapped me and shut me up here. I have a child I have to take care ofhe's sick with a d
isease. As a woman, you must understand. Please, let me go."

  Her close-set eyes squinted at me for a moment, and she nervously stubbed out her thin brown cigarette in the transparent ashtray on the desk. "I know nothing about it, and I don't care! I just heard about you from my brothers and bought you at a high price for my karaoke bar. We paid your friend on the hill. You saw it, too. Now you have to work to earn back what we paid for you."

  That day, she wore spectacles with transparent purple lenses instead of sunglasses. Her eyebrows, which started from behind her glasses, were long lines shaped like two round mountains. It seemed that eyebrows were a big deal here.

  She told me to call her sajangtiim (boss) and took a sip of a tea from a transparent, round tea thermos. Inside the thermos purple flowers and green leaves danced languidly.

  "Anyway, you're here; you'll work until you reimburse the price we paid for you, and then you can leave. Isn't this much better than a cave swarming with bugs? Think about it: you are an illegal vagrant in China. You are not supposed to set foot in this land, but you did. If someone reports you to the police, they'll come and drag you away within five minutes. We are protecting you. You don't know how dangerous it is outside. You can't imagine how runaways like you, especially women, usually end up." She cupped her chin in one hand and looked up at me. "You'll understand our kindness someday. The women working here all have good hearts; they'll be good friends for you. If something makes you uncomfortable, let me know. We'll do our best to take care of you."

  She took another brown cigarette from a box. Her red and silver lighter spouted a thin flame, and she lit the cigarette with a long draw. "If you really want to get out of here, work hard. That's the fastest way. You can start after this weekend. I'll think over what role you can play best."

  I got up to leave. "Remember, right now, you are a debtor," she said, gravely. "You can't leave before we're square. As long as you're here, your body belongs to me."