22
T
HE ORPHANAGE MISTRESS AWOKE
with a start, hearing a motor come to a stop on the street outside. Vehicles at night usually meant an inspection by the secret police. Typically these were routine, conducted by bored officers who only wanted to put check marks on a list and proceed to the next residence. Sometimes, however, they were more serious, targeting specific people suspected of ill behavior. Regardless, everything had to be in top shape. Could someone have found out about her Bible? Could one of the children have turned her in for receiving foreign goods? She was out of bed and putting on her clothes in a flash.
She rapidly went over a list in her mind of the things the inspectors would want to see: proper maintenance and positioning of the portraits of the Great and Dear Leaders, proper identity cards for all the residents seventeen or older, birth certificates for the younger ones, public areas cleaned and well maintained, et cetera. She fought down a wave of panic as she realized that she had not been very diligent about her duties lately. There might be any number of infractions that she was unaware of. If they did a thorough inspection, they might find the gifts that the young man had given her, and she immediately regretted saving all the little foreign scraps in her Bible. She pushed those thoughts from her mind. This was probably just routine, and the girls were usually very good about keeping everything together.
She went to the foyer and flipped a light switch, and was glad to see that the power was working. Of course, they would want the power on during inspections to make their job easier. She scrutinized the portraits of the Great and Dear Leaders. With relief she found them to be glimmering and spotless, as was the surrounding foyer. She felt a welling of pride for her girls; they had taken up the slack where she had been neglectful.
The mistress went quickly from room to room, but everything was in order. She had been anticipating a loud knock at the door, but it was unusually slow in coming. She went back to the foyer and peered out a window overlooking the street. As her eyes adjusted, she was just able to make out the silhouettes of a motor scooter and two people. She had been expecting to see a military truck—her sleeping mind, always on guard for the approach of inspectors, must have magnified the whine of the scooter. Curiosity, more than her duty as
inminbanjang,
compelled her to light a lamp and walk out the door.
The people standing next to the scooter did not hear the door open and close, nor did they see the mistress as she approached them. The glow from her oil lamp lit the figures enough to see that they were locked in a passionate kiss. She recognized the clothing of the woman as being a uniform from the garment factory. As she got nearer, she recognized the pretty form of the impish Il-sun. She was not exactly surprised to see her, of all the orphans, breaking curfew and making out with a young man on the street at night.
“You have some explaining to do, Park Il-sun,” said the mistress, her tone conveying both disappointment and understanding. Il-sun peeled her face away from the man’s, at first terror-stricken but then defiant, her eyes glassy from alcohol. As Il-sun turned to look at the mistress, the light from the lamp lit the face of her lover. The mistress’s heart missed a beat and she felt instantly short of breath. The young man, her young man, was holding the young and pretty orphan, had been kissing her hungrily, his hands digging shamelessly into her buttocks. His face was now expressionless.
“Get inside. Now!” she commanded. Il-sun very slowly removed herself from the young man, keeping eye contact with the mistress as she did so, her mouth a triumphant sneer. She walked past the mistress in slow, fluid strides rendered top-heavy from alcohol. She was making an insubordinate show, taking her time to reach the front door. The orphanage door slammed, leaving the mistress and the young man alone on the street.
They stood facing each other. He lit a cigarette, inhaled, almost said something, then exhaled. He took another thoughtful drag, looking at the mistress. Her eyes were unnavigable storms above a sea he had no intention of crossing. They were unreadable to him. He exhaled and then flicked the half-smoked cigarette into the street, wanting to say “What did you expect from me?” But he said nothing. He looked a little sad, as though he wanted to explain something to a child. It was a look that said “If you only understood, then you would see why there is no need for me to be sorry. If anything, that is what I’m sorry for: that you don’t understand, and that I don’t need to apologize.”
He mounted his scooter and, without looking back, drove into the night.
23
F
OR
G
I, SURVIVAL IN
the gulag had two faces. The first, her political mask, meant becoming the perfect
Chosun
girl. She became obedient and self-effacing. She worked hard without thought for her own well-being; everything was done for the glory of the Dear Leader and the benefit of the state. She learned to hold all her feelings deep inside where even she could not feel them. She became properly ebullient and effusive at the sight of the Dear Leader’s image, but otherwise her face had taken on the grim, defeated look that was standard issue for all prisoners.
The other face of her survival was social. Aside from the strict regulations for behavior laid out by the Great Leader, there were subtle rules that applied only in the gulag and were enforced by the children themselves. There was an unofficial hierarchy among the inmates that dictated who got the best portions of food, who got to bunk in the choicest places, who got to keep the odd extra blanket. Learning the intricacies of this system took months. Whereas the political rules of behavior were clearly written out and rehearsed each day, the social rules had to be intuited or learned by trial and error. She quickly learned who the key players were, but learning how to keep them all satisfied was nearly impossible.
Food rations at the prison camp were meager—even the prison authorities did not make pretense to the contrary. It was understood that because Gyong-ho was one of the lowliest of citizens, she was undeserving of full rations. Most of the meals were nothing more than a thin maize gruel, often bulked up with sawdust. There was never any meat, or any promise of meat. She did, from time to time, benefit from the vegetables of the prison gardens, but the simple, unadorned fact was that all the prisoners were starving. It was understood that survival of the fittest was the ruling principle of the gulag. They were in a slow race between the failing point of their bodies and the unlikely event of their release.
Even in the worst of conditions, over the long run, people will fall into a routine and eke out a semblance of normalcy. This was true within the prison camp as well. Death and despair were Gyong-ho’s constant companions, but daily events took place around her with surreal detachment. Friendships between inmates formed, gossip circulated, and people laughed—albeit with acidic sarcasm and infrequently. Even the prison guards, who meted out abuses of all kinds every day, did so with a business-as-usual air. When people come to feel that lives are cheap and survival is a moment-to-moment event, the grieving period becomes short. To meet someone is to be grieving for her already. Her actual passing becomes a formality.
24
G
YONG-HO SLAPPED AT
I
L-SUN’S
cheeks in an attempt to wake her. Her toxic smell reminded Gi of the factory foreman—almost flammable. Also, there was something faintly raw and masculine to her scent, but there was no time to think about that. Dawn was breaking and it was nearly time for them to go to work. Failing to rouse her, Gi solicited the aid of two other girls, who helped half drag, half carry her to the outdoor bathing room. Together they stripped Il-sun completely and sat her in a small enamel basin. The morning air was bone chilling and their breath came out in dragons of steam. Il-sun made a half-hearted attempt to resist, but lacked the ardor to have any effect against the determined girls. Gi poured buckets of cold water over her head and body, eliciting a series of protests and curses. Then Gi took a cloth, lathered it up with precious soap, and scrubbed her from head to toe. Il-sun broke away suddenly to vomit into the drain. Gi rinsed off the soap with more cold water, and then wrapped her in a towel, patting her friend dry. She wished there were time to do it with more care.
Il-sun was finally able to stand on her own. She smelled better, but her breath was still caustic. Gi dressed her in a fresh uniform and helped her walk into the kitchen. The mistress was sitting on a stool in a corner and looked over at them with red, bleary eyes. She looked as if she had not slept.
“Put some water on for tea,” she said in a rough voice.
Gi obliged the mistress after sitting Il-sun down on a stool. Il-sun lay her head down on the counter, groaning. It seemed that she was trying not to look at the mistress. The mistress, on the other hand, seemed quite interested in Il-sun. It was hard to determine what was on the mistress’s mind. She was appraising Il-sun and struggling on the inside. Clearly something had happened between them. Gi was afraid that the mistress knew that she had lied to her. She hated to disappoint the mistress.
The water on the stove came to a boil, and the mistress put several heaps of tea leaves into the pot. To Gi it looked like a whole week’s worth of tea. There was silence while it steeped. The tea came out nearly black when the mistress poured it into three teacups. She handed a cup to Gi, and then set one down in front of Il-sun. Gi could not see the bottom of her cup—she had never tasted such strong tea. Il-sun looked up with an expression that said she would have liked to have thrown hers across the room; instead, she put her cold hands around the cup. She was still shivering from the bath.
The mistress inhaled as if about to speak, but then exhaled mutely. She inhaled again, and then held her breath for a moment before speaking, as if she were smoking her words. “You two will be leaving here soon,” the mistress finally said, sighing. It came out without the pique Gi had expected. “I have filled out the necessary paperwork, giving you my high recommendations, and an apartment should become available within a month or two. You will be living together.”
“Thank you, miss,” said Gi.
“Gyong-ho, I know I don’t need to tell you this, but I will say it for your sake, Il-sun, because I don’t think you quite get it. It is a very dangerous world we live in. I’m not talking about the Americans or imperialists or enemies that we cannot see. It is dangerous right here, in this city. In this country. We are always being watched. Everything we do, everywhere we go, everyone we talk to is seen and recorded. Do you understand me?”
“No, I don’t think I follow you,” said Il-sun looking up at the mistress with a cold stare, her voice filled with sarcasm. Gi wondered where the animosity was coming from.
“Then let me make myself clear,” said the mistress, emphasizing each word. “He is dangerous, Il-sun. He is not whatever he says he is. He is lying to you and using you and leading you down a path from which you may never recover. I think you know that he operates an illicit business. At the very least your
songbun
will be tarnished. At the worst, your association with him will brand you as an enemy of the state. People disappear for that to a hell you cannot possibly even imagine. Ask Gyong-ho. She knows.”
Il-sun shot a surprised glance at Gi, whose eyes were starting to roll back in her head. She was entering one of her episodes. Il-sun brought her focus back to the mistress. “And how do you know that he operates an ‘illicit’ business? Could it be that you use his services? Who are you to threaten me?” Something that the young man had said to her had stuck in Il-sun’s mind, lodging there because of the simple truth in it: “If you can figure out a man’s weakness, you can own him.” She knew the mistress’s weakness, and it was time to use it.
“I am not trying to threaten—”
“I know about the book,” Il-sun said with sharp triumph.
The mistress dropped her cup.
Gi counted seventy-two shards skipping across the floor.
The mistress was lithified and bloodless. Slowly the feeling returned to her fingers and her heart resumed beating. Color came back to her cheeks and the shock on her face dissipated. She met Il-sun’s fierce stare with a look of doleful resignation.
“You are trying to frighten me, but all I feel is sad. Very, very sad.” The mistress stood up and walked out of the room.
G
YONG
-
HO
AND
I
L
-
SUN
walked in silence. They were going to be late, which was causing Gi to twist at the fabric of her blouse in nervousness. The foreman would be molten.
The argument between the mistress and Il-sun was deeply disturbing. Gi and her friend were being pulled apart at the very fibers that connected them, and she felt as if a piece of herself were being removed. It was painful. She wanted to be a part of Il-sun’s life, but Il-sun wasn’t sharing herself anymore.
“Gi, I think I’m a woman now,” Il-sun finally said, breaking the silence between them.