Jia: A Novel of North Korea

by Hyejin Kim

  I wasn't Jia anymore, I was walking money.

  The day after our arrival, I went outside with the deep-dimpled woman-I had learned her name was Mija-under the supervision of a man who haughtily informed us that he was going to turn us from country bumpkins into city women. The journey into town was my first glimpse of a Chinese city. The streets were so alive. The only thing I could compare it to was Pyongyang's World Youth Festival, though much noisier and more chaotic. I couldn't breathe very well because of the smoke. People and cars mixed together on the road; there were no traffic policemen. Vehicles moved wherever they wanted, and pedestrians rushed fearlessly in front of them, blocking the intersections. I was panic-stricken. The constant honking made me dizzy, and I couldn't see the sky above the rows of neon signs, big and small, mixing Korean and Chinese characters. Several giant signs featured widely smiling Korean women wearing hanbok.

  "This place has everything," our warden said, beaming. "It has changed so fast. Look at those glittering signsaren't they pretty? People who want to party come here to spend their money. That's where you come in. I hope you appreciate how lucky you are." He stroked Mija's hips and leered. Seeing this, I gripped her hand tightly and pulled her to my side. She looked at me in surprise and smiled.

  Her revelations to me the night before had brought us closer. We both realized that it was in our interest to leave our misunderstandings behind and try to become friends.

  The previous night, as I tried to fall asleep, Mija had tucked her arm under her head and lain down, facing me. I looked at her in the darkness with barely concealed contempt; I felt she had aided in my kidnapping.

  "I have nothing left," she said.

  The night air beyond the window was filled with laughter and music. Most of the women had gone, leaving behind only the noxious smell of cosmetics and perfume. I felt like vomiting.

  "When I sent my baby down the river, my life floated away with her," Mija said, abjectly.

  I turned onto my back and looked at the ceiling. It was much higher than in any of the other rooms I had seen so far. I thought of the cave, with its low ceiling and its stench, which I had learned to ignore after a while; perhaps we can get used to anything. I still felt hostile toward Mija. Truly, I cared more about Sangwon than about some wretch and her dead baby.

  Mija turned onto her back as I had and went on. "I don't know why I said I would go with them." As she spoke, her voice grew louder, spreading into the whole room. "I felt so empty after I lost her. My baby's father was called my husband, but he never took care of us. He always flirted with other women. He told me he was starting his own business with another woman, and then they left, and never came back. I wonder if he even remembers our baby's name.

  "I spent the days lost, with nothing to do. All I had to do was feed my baby, but we had nothing. Sometimes, my sister-in-law brought corn and rice, but eventually she stopped, and I couldn't blame her. She had three children of her own, and my brother didn't return from China for several months. My baby and I barely managed to live by eating cake flavored with pine bark. It eased the hunger, but it brought horrible physical pain. We were constipated; my baby was crying from pain all day and night. I even put soapy water into her anus with a rubber hose. I heard that some of my village people who couldn't go relieve themselves died because of it. I knew what the food did to us, but we ate it again and again. I couldn't stand my baby's screams. I decided to cross the river to save her."

  Mija paused for a moment. I could hear her breathing heavily, trying to hold back her tears.

  "I didn't know you were in the car until I got in," she said quietly. "When I asked them to take me, they told me to be at the mouth of the cave in three hours. When I saw you, I was surprised. They just said, `She's not as smart as you are. We are trying to help her.' I didn't care about you, I even thought it would be better for me-at least I would see one familiar face when I got wherever they were taking me."

  She turned away and sniveled quietly. I watched the ceiling in silence for a while and then slid into sleep.

  Across the busy street, a hair salon was our destination. The hairdresser spoke Korean. She didn't ask me what I wanted; she just looked at me this way and that and then poured some chemicals onto my hair. My scalp burned, but when I tried to touch my head, she warned me, "You need this for your untamed hair."

  While I suffered from whatever was in my hair, our warden teased me as though I was an animal in the zoo, and chatted gaily with his girlfriend on his cellular phone. He didn't leave my side for several hours. Occasionally, he threw some magazines onto my knee, saying, "You can kill time with those."

  The magazines were colorful, showcasing many pretty women, but I couldn't concentrate. I looked out through the front door of the salon; so many people in the busy street. As darkness fell, the neon signs became brighter. Among them, one written in red letters caught my attention: Pyongyang Restaurant. It was a glowing three-story building, all glass. Women dressed in hanbok and men in bow ties seemed to flicker inside. All I could think of was how I could escape from this torture.

  Several hours later, my hair had turned reddish-brown.

  I didn't see the owner of the karaoke bar for days; it seemed she had completely forgotten about me. The women slept all day. At dawn, the smell of alcohol overpowered their cheap perfume; some women came back singing softly, while others came in frowning and swore themselves to sleep. Occasionally they would be riled up, and their loud laughter kept me up through the wee hours, until the men in the hall forced them to be quiet. When they woke up in the late afternoon, the women had returned to their reticent selves and quietly began preparations for another day at the karaoke bar.

  When I first encountered the nightly routine, I was frightened by the drunken women. In the mornings they had hollow eyes and complained of headaches; at night their eyes were wild and out of focus. That will be you soon, someone seemed to whisper in my ear.

  One evening, after most of the women had left for the evening, Mija and I cleaned up. We had opened the window completely to let some fresh air in when the owner came in and looked around the room.

  Finding us, she commanded the eyebrowless woman, "Hey, help them make up."

  "Will they start working tonight?" the woman asked, checking her curls in the mirror.

  "Right. Hurry. It's time for the guests," the owner snapped.

  "You should have said so before. I'm busy right now. And I'm not here to take care of novices."

  "Stop whining. Since when are you busy? Nobody is interested in you, as usual."

  The eyebrowless woman glared into her mirror for a moment, trying to find a word to spit back. Instead, she spun around to me. "Come here," she said without emotion.

  Seeing the eyebrowless woman grab a cosmetic case, the boss departed. "Hurry," she said on her way out. "Make her hair smoother, too. The first impression is the most important-for her and for me."

  The woman sneered, "That cross-eyed bitch is giving up on me. She's getting worse." She took a strong-smelling lotion out of the case and rubbed it on my face. "This means you'll start a new life tonight." She watched my eyes for a moment and took out another bottle of lotion. "Just smile at the guests and serve them nicely. It's okay-after the first time, you'll think it's nothing."

  "I'll think what's nothing? Are we singing and dancing for them? Or just serving food? Do we have to drink a lot?" Considering what I had seen, the job couldn't be that pleasant.

  She didn't stop applying the lotion to my face. "You'll figure it out."

  "I don't understand this place and the people here. I didn't risk my life for this," I complained.

  Instantly, she lifted my face and powdered it from my forehead to my chin. Shutting my eyes to protect them from the powder, I heard her husky voice say, "Grow up and open your eyes. I'm satisfied with this life now. If you stop thinking about life, everything becomes simpler. When you open your eyes, a day starts. When you close your eyes, your day is over. What you eat and wh
at you can buy will be the most important things to you sooner or later."

  Having applied makeup to my face, the eyebrowless woman had me put on a shiny blue dress embroidered with silver, with holes that left my arms, my neck, chest, and thighs exposed. It felt like nothing more than a tiny towel, and my face grew hot. Once I was dressed, the owner took me to the first floor.

  The lights in the hall were all on, and the building was alive. The owner stopped in front of a red door. "The better you serve the customers, the sooner you can get out of here and see your kid," she said, with menace in her voice.

  She opened the door, and I saw a wall dominated by a giant TV screen surrounded by several smaller screens. Ruddy faces turned toward me. The room was filled with cigarette smoke. The smell of alcohol was in the air, and the music and the spinning lights were mesmerizing.

  The owner pushed me into the room. "She's new."

  I lowered my head instinctively, and a stout man rose to his feet and approached us. He rubbed the owner's back. "That's why I like you. How did you know we brought a really important guest tonight?" He leered at the owner, then at me.

  "I read you better than your wife, right?" the owner said with a laugh. Patting the stout man's stomach, she said, "It's her first time here. She may not serve you so well, but look after her. Okay?" She wrapped her arm around my shoulder, overflowing with smiles as she spoke into my ear, but never taking her eyes off the others. "Do your best to serve these guests. They are my top customers." Her eyes glittered, but her mouth didn't smile.

  All eyes seemed to be on me. I didn't raise my head or move a finger after the owner left. The gleaming lights were moving overhead as the stout man addressed his table, switching to Chinese from Korean. His voice was high and thin compared to his body.

  Speaking into my ear, he said in Korean, "You'll have a good time here. We'll take such good care of you."

  He sat me down on a sofa. The short dress made me uncomfortable, and I tried to cover my bare thighs, folding my arms in my lap. I counted seven pairs of legs under the table. Men and women's legs next to each other.

  I wondered how Mija was doing. Earlier that evening, a man had led her to the other side of the hall. The owner was displeased with Mija's very thin curly hairstyle, and had grabbed her hair and pulled it back behind her ears. Mija screamed in pain, but the owner just howled with laughter. "Do you think this is the nineteen seventies? How much will it cost to get the countryside out of you?"

  The stout man handed me a cup of wine. "My Chinese friends want to know when you crossed the river."

  I recoiled with fright to hear my secret mentioned so casually. Does everyone know? The fact that I had risked my life was mere entertainment to them. I didn't take the cup, keeping my eyes fixed on the ground.

  The man wrapped his heavy arm around my shoulder and thrust the cup in front of my face. "I'm asking you when you came here."

  A woman across from me answered in haste, "She just arrived. Like sajangnim said, this is her first night."

  He said something in Chinese, pressing my forearm with his chubby hand. "You're brand new. Wasn't it cold crossing the river? Weren't you scared? The river must still be cold. This big guy will warm your body up-come here." He put his other hand on my thigh and tried to pull me toward him.

  I pushed him back with all my plight and jumped out off the sofa, shrieking, "Don't even think about touching one strand of my hair. I'm not joking. Do you understand?"

  He landed on the woman sitting next to him. She cried out in pain.

  "What the hell is this wench trying to do?" He stood up and tried to hit me.

  The woman interjected, pulling him down. "Calm down. She's new, she's not yet been tamed by a man. Isn't she fresh, compared to us? You can train her graduallyit'll be fun. Come on! Sit down. Think about your Chinese guests. Didn't you say they would be good rich patrons? Consider your reputation. Come on!"

  He stared fiercely at me for a moment and nodded his head to the other men several times, saying something in Chinese.

  As he spoke, the woman walked over to me and put her face in mine. The smell of liquor engulfed me as she hissed, "Don't make trouble. Everything that you did will be reported. Be careful! You'd better listen to me, or I can't get my money either. Got it, moron?"

  She turned back and smiled at the guests. Addressing them in Chinese, she said, "Let's play a game. You'll love it. You push the buttons on this remote control with your eyes closed, and you have to sing whichever song comes up. Let's go clockwise around the table, and no matter what song you get, you have to finish it. If one person can't sing his song, another person can volunteer, and then that volunteer can ask the person who couldn't sing to do whatever the volunteer orders. Drinking a glass of wine or a bottle of a beer, licking the sole of his foot, taking off a piece of clothing-anything. How about that?"

  People clapped their hands in delight. The stout man roared with laughter. "This old fox knows every song here. And she likes to take guys' clothes off" He clapped his knees. "Okay. Let's do it! It's your turn to be naked, for once."

  She smirked playfully, "Let's see! I'll go first."

  As the other woman told me the rules of the game, I was stupefied. There was no way I could know any of the songs.

  Seeing my reaction, the stout man smiled insidiously and patted my knee. "There are North Korean songs, too. Don't worry. I'll sing for you if you don't know. I'll be your protector." He winked.

  The woman who had suggested the game pushed several numbers, and words came up on the screen, accompanied by loud music. She grabbed a microphone with a broad grin, saying, "Oh, that's a hard one." She didn't make any mistakes in the rhythm or the lyrics, and the stout man danced and sang along with her. All the women passed the test. When a man couldn't sing, the woman in charge sang for him and ordered him to drink a big cup of wine. She asked a young man to take off his tie. "Let's start with the tie-we've got lots of time."

  I was the last to sing. Before I could push the buttons, she handed me the microphone and whispered, "Keep your eyes slightly open and push one-thirty-five."

  I was surprised; I didn't expect her to help me. Frantically, my fingers found the number 135, and the song that came out was the most popular one in North Korea at the time.

  The stout man said loudly, "What a lucky night for you."

  It was the song the other dancers and I had sung at the hotel for foreign customers on their last night in Pyongyang, and I was happy to sing it again. This time, I was singing for my survival, and a bolt of fire shot up my throat. I watched the woman who helped me. She was smoking a cigarette, listening without expression.

  When I finished, she took the microphone and sniffed, "Huh. What did you do over there? Your voice sounds well trained."

  The stout man stood up and clapped, holding a cigarette in his mouth. "Okay. This time we'll go counterclockwise," he said, snatching the microphone back and handing it to me again.

  The woman patted his stomach and said, "I'm the moderator of this game. I will take care of it. You, relax."

  He snarled at her, "I'm the one paying the money. I will decide whatever I want to do."

  She looked at him and shrugged. "As you wish..." Sitting down, she nodded to me to go ahead.

  I stared at the man for a moment.

  "What are you doing?" he demanded. "Push the buttons with your eyes closed, come on! Other people are waiting." He chortled, lighting a cigarette.

  I pressed the buttons on the remote control randomly, trying to get a similar number. I thought the closest number would be another North Korean song. What popped up on the screen was in Chinese.

  I turned to the others. "I can't sing this one. I don't know Chinese, it's not fair." I looked to the self-appointed moderator for support.

  "A game is a game," she said. "Other people were punished, too. You should follow the rule." She leaned over the sofa.

  "Come on. It's already started," the stout plan said, pushing the microphone c
lose to my mouth.

  I stood there in silence, holding the microphone.

  The woman in charge looked around the room. "Who wants to sing for her?"

  No sooner had she asked than the stout man stripped me of the microphone and said, "This is my favorite song."

  He sang it, throwing his bulk around. Other men and women joined him, and I watched them vacantly.

  When the song was finished, he stroked his chin in mock thought. "What will I ask of you?" He walked around me several times, then stopped, as a slow grin spread across his face. "Take off your underpants."

  Several men who understood Korean whistled and giggled.

  I thought I had misheard it. Someone said, "What did that fat man say?"

  "She has to start with an outer garment," the woman in charge said.

  The stout man shook his head. "No, she wears a onepiece dress. I'm trying to be considerate, right?" He looked around at the others for their support. The Chinese men asked the others what he had said. Understanding, they smiled.

  "Didn't you hear me? We're all waiting. Do it right now!" With his arms folded, he sat down on the sofa.

  Shame rose from my stomach.

  "Let's see what kind of underwear you people wear," he jeered.

  "No. It's not going to happen," I said, glaring at him, flushing with anger.

  He looked daggers at me. "You have enjoyed other people's punishment. You aren't exceptional. I am politely asking you to pay the penalty. `When in Rome, do as the Romans do.' When you are in this room, do as the people in this room do." His glittering eyes frightened me. "Right now!"

  I turned to leave, but he seized my arm, snarling, "I warned you. Don't embarrass me. They came here to enjoy themselves tonight, and if you leave like this, you will regret it, I promise."

  I didn't know what I was doing; I only knew I had to escape. When he dragged me back to the table, I grabbed the nearest object and slung it at his head. Shattered glass spread all over the room. With a sharp scream-"You wretch!"-he tumbled to the floor, clutching his head. There were shrieks as a few people lunged for me. I covered my head and crouched in a corner to make my body as small as possible.