Then, quite suddenly, the impact of her actions hit her full force. She felt her chest tighten and the air squeeze out of her lungs. She could not draw a breath, no matter how hard she tried. Even though she did not much believe in the Dear Leader, he still exerted power over her life. Suffocating, she reached upward to the photograph, barely able to reach it with her sleeve, and wiped the glass. She could feel the cool dampness of the saliva as it soaked through her shirt in spots—her aim had been true. She sucked at the air in tiny gasps as she polished the glass.
I’m not good enough,
she thought. It was a meaningless, superstitious incantation, but it had the power to loosen the death grip on her lungs. She hoped from the depth of her soul that the glass would not be smeared. There would be an investigation for sure if it were.
Il-sun took two steps back, her breath slowly returning to normal, and thought about the man she was going now to see. He was not the perfect man, but the only one who could, now, elevate her station in life. If her mother had not died, Il-sun would, no doubt, be courted by a handsome young Party official—a man working his way up the ranks, destined for success, and competing for her affection. He would arrive at the apartment, nervous, smelling of precious aftershave in a flawlessly pressed uniform. He would make a show of politeness and generosity to Mother, who would size him up and giggle girlishly—courting the daughter is also about courting the mother. Mother would bring out the best kimchee for him, and serve steaming pork while subtly mining him for information about his family history. A girl married the history as much as she did the man.
That life, that
songbun,
was over for her now. As an orphan she needed a strategy. She did not want to spend the rest of her days slowly becoming arthritic at the garment factory. Her new man did not have good
songbun
or Party clout, but had built a life for himself all the same. With him she could, at least, rise above her station. What did it matter if some would call it unrespectable?
Il-sun turned to the door, unlocked it, and stole into the night.
17
H
ER HANDS TRACED OVER
another package. How she had come to live for these moments, these points of lonely intimacy. The mistress feared that she may be neglecting the girls, letting things slide, but she could not stop thinking about the young man.
The wrapping fell to the floor, and she felt a lurch in her lower abdomen, her womb, a kind of contraction. She inhaled sharply. She was not sure how to feel. A line of propriety had been crossed and she should be offended. But, oh yes, how she wanted him to cross it. In her hands she was holding barely anything at all—it was what was not there that created its implicit scandal, and there was so much of them that was not there. She held them to her face, smoothing the scant lace across her cheeks and lips, her closed eyes: red panties and bra the color of ripe apple.
Watching in the mirror, she pulled her blouse over her head and stepped out of her ankle-length skirt. Her drab and gray underwear looked like hunger, and she cast it off. Naked now, she saw her outlaw body. All the curves and crevices that make a woman were there.
Sitting on a stool, she rolled a new white stocking over her foot and up her calf. And then the other one. She slid the new panties over her ankles and up to her waist, admiring how the delicate fabric drew attention to her intimate mounds and valleys. The waistband was little more than a string around her waist. The lacy fabric down the front formed a V that fit perfectly inside the lines of her inner thighs. Only partly concealed by the matrix of the lace was the triangle of swirling dark hair leading to the hill of her pubis and the folds of her vulva. This partial concealment was intoxicating. She fastened the brassiere around her chest, her breasts not quite filling the cups. It was a garment that was made to be seen by others; but having no one, she looked again in the mirror to see herself. This underwear looked like hunger too, but of a different kind.
Seeing herself this way, she had a sense of invulnerability. This woman could stop all fear and hunger and death; she could stop fate itself. She lay down on her sleeping mat. Using the hand mirror that the young man had given her, she watched as she allowed her fingers to trace the outline of her panties. The light touch caused a shiver to roll through her. She imagined that her fingers were the fingers of the young man exploring her body for the first time, and her eyes were his eyes watching her. Fingertips followed bones and tendons and sensitized lines where light flesh meets dark flesh. With her fingers she indulged in the power of her building desire, purposefully avoiding her most sensitive places even though they throbbed in anguish to be touched. She breathed her sweet and musky smell and imagined how the young man’s scent would mix with her own. She was no stranger to her own pleasure, having touched herself many times before, but never had she so thoroughly drawn it out as if she were the lover touching her.
Her breath was ragged and heavy, and her heart beat strongly. Blood flushed the surface of her skin. She brought herself to the very brink of release and hovered there. She basked in the raw power of the moment, savoring the interplay of control and the uncontrollable. How would the young man be in moments such as this? Would he rush to the finish, or draw back from the edge? Could he stay, unmoving, supercharged, with her?
Her breath wound down slowly, and the thin film of perspiration covering her body evaporated as her skin cooled down. Her heartbeat returned to normal, but she did not. Something had changed inside her. She brought her hand to her face, and delighted in the texture of her own skin. She was made of flesh and blood.
18
T
HE DAYS AT THE
camp began before sunrise and ended long after sunset. It was a constant blur of reeducation classes, labor and longing for food, water and nurturing. Gyong-ho was taught that her parents had strayed from the path of good and deserved to be punished for their transgressions. By association, she herself had been stained by impure imperialist ways and needed to work doubly hard to prove herself worthy of living in the Worker’s Paradise. The Dear Leader loved her, in spite of her shamefulness; and, as his child, it was her duty to honor him by confessing the misdeeds of her relatives and friends.
From day to day the tasks of her labor changed. Commonly she was given the job of finding firewood, or working on the prison’s farm. There was also a small factory at the camp that produced items for export to China, though Gyong-ho never knew what they were. When she worked there, her job had been to stamp out small, meaningless steel pieces using a hydraulic press. She was grateful that she was too young to work in the mine. The adults, when she saw them, were broken and blackened with soot. She thought of her father and ached for him. Could the earth digest an innocent man and turn him into stone? She was expected to prove herself by working tirelessly and mutely, with only the vague promise that one day a higher power might deem her worthy of reentering
Chosun
society.
Verbal self-flagellation was an integral part of her training. Gi was required to stand in front of her class each day and tell everyone the ways she had failed to match up to the
Chosun
ideal and what she would do the next day to be better. She was encouraged to devise punishments for herself. Failing that, the group would decide on the best punishment for her. Sometimes it was to clean latrines or to skip meals. Lighter punishments involved cleaning dormitories or writing repetitious lines about fealty to the Dear Leader. Beatings, isolation, and torture were part of the standard repertoire of punishments used by the prison guards.
Less common were rewards for model behavior. This usually involved the honor of reading the words of Kim Il-sung aloud during reeducation, or sometimes an extra ration of food. These rewards most often followed a confession implicating a family member or friend in antirevolutionary activity and were doled out with much fanfare.
In the fervor to become worthy
Chosun
citizens, the children often looked for ways to rat each other out. It was common for a child, taken up in the excitement of her devotion to the Dear Leader, to express some imagined or exaggerated transgression on the part of another child. The hope of reward, especially that of extra food, ensured that this happened with regularity. Some children learned that they could trick the more gullible of their peers into making transgressions that they could later report. Gi fell into that trap several times in her first few weeks in the gulag.
There was no one she could trust, and nobody to look after her.
19
T
HE FOREMAN STOOD IN
front of the busy seamstresses, scowling. The joints of his damaged leg were aching with particular vengeance.
There must be a storm coming,
he thought. He was a man who made use of his pain. Many other men would have become lesser people, useless and whining. Instead, he used it to propel himself forward, to make himself stronger. The Great Leader would have approved.
The problem with people today,
he thought,
is that they are out of touch with the war. The Great Leader would never have let that happen.
He was not sure which was more painful, standing in one place or walking, so he alternated between the two. They each hurt differently, he decided. He paced the room, randomly inspecting the work of the seamstresses. “Your seams aren’t straight enough, Comrade Kim!” he barked at a cowering young woman. “Comrade Ho! You’re wasting fabric,” he scolded another.
Yes, these women have not seen enough war,
he agreed with himself.
Foreman Hwang was a bitter man. He had been born with excellent
songbun,
but now look at him! Relegated to the impotent task of managing a bunch of snotty girls who knew nothing of real sacrifice and loyalty. His father had been a decorated veteran of the war against the imperialists: He had killed Americans and lost an arm. He had met the Great Leader, who pinned a medal on his lapel and called him a true son of the Republic. His father had earned his privilege—a high standing in the Party, a spacious apartment in the center of town, a television set.
That is the way to respect loyalty. That should have been my birthright, coming from such pure stock. The new guard doesn’t understand what makes a man a man. Today it all goes to sycophants and liars. Twenty years ago I would have been elevated for my sacrifice, but now they just push me aside
.
The foreman’s hard eyes scanned the room and landed on Gyong-ho.
Now, there is a girl with real Party potential,
he thought.
There is a girl who has seen the wrong end of the Party and knows what it can do. She fears it properly, like a loaded gun, which gives her the right amount of respect. Look at her, thin and pale. She looks almost like a boy. Look how she works: tirelessly, head down, efficient. She is completely focused. Every day she exceeds the quota, and yet she always gives her extras to her friend, the pretty one. I could have her flogged for doing that. If I were given a chance I could mold that loyalty to fit the Party instead. Then she would turn in her lazy friend rather than protect her. Anyway, that pretty cunt has it coming to her, I’ve seen to that.
He turned too quickly and searing pain shot up his leg. He thought of Kim Il-sung and pushed the pain out of his consciousness. He thought of running a bayonet through the chest of a long-nosed imperialist. He thought of a world where respect was given to those who really deserved it—a world that made perfect, orderly sense.
20
G
YONG-HO AND
I
L-SUN WENT
out the factory double doors and into the first truly warm day of spring. Mercifully the workers’ education class had been cancelled for that evening and they were able to go out and enjoy the last rays of sunshine. The air throbbed with life as birds sang, insects cut circuitous routes to buds and blossoms, and brilliant light glinted off every surface. The smell of trees was pervasive, and there seemed a general feeling of thrill to be alive.
“There he is!” Il-sun pointed to a young man on a pale green scooter parked at the curb next to the factory. The young man looked up and smiled from underneath his blue newsboy cap. His eyes were shielded by large, dark sunglasses with wire rims. “I wonder how he knew we would be finished early?” she asked.
Gyong-ho thought he looked conspicuously well-to-do, sitting on a scooter and smoking a filtered cigarette. There was something disconcerting about his careless appearance. It was not the way he looked, specifically, but the fact that he got away with it that was cause for concern. To Gyong-ho he looked dangerous, and therefore was somebody to be avoided. But to Il-sun, the danger was the most attractive part.
Il-sun started running to the young man, then stopped herself in midstride. She composed herself and instead walked with almost painful slowness, exaggerating the fluid communion between her hips and shoulders. A moment before, she had been just a girl chatting; and then, suddenly, she was all woman and springtime, the embodiment of feminine beauty. In spite of her shapeless factory uniform, the sunlight hinted at the form of her body underneath. Her coy indirectness and impudent slowness were part of a calculated torture. The young man was playing a similar game, sitting on his scooter as if time itself belonged to him, smoking his cigarette and pretending not to notice Il-sun approaching.