Under the Same Sky (27 page)

But I kept walking, and a debate sprang up in my head. Staying versus leaving.

North Korea is still my home. It’s the place where I learned to swim and play soccer, to crawl and run fast.

What do you have to compare it to? You’ve never been anywhere else.

I know what to expect. There are no disappointments here.

People pull out their mother’s teeth with pliers. That’s not disappointing?

I know my way around Hoeryong. China is a mystery to me.

You have nowhere to sleep tonight.

I’ve survived three years on my own!

You will die without seeing Bong Sook again.

If anyone had stopped me that day, I would probably still be in North Korea. My thoughts of escape had come to me almost on a whim. I had never thought it was possible to cross over alone. Honestly, I probably could have remained alive physically. North Korea had taught me how to survive. I was a good enough thief. But I also knew that I would never be prosperous or happy, and that one long illness would be the end of me.

Despite that knowledge, it was something else inside me that urged me on: the sense of having lost every human connection I had in the world. There was a practical reason too. I wanted to earn enough money to bribe some high-up officials to get my mother out of prison and begin the reunification of my family.

Bong Sook had disappeared into China. I only had my mother left. I wanted to rescue her.

Chapter

A
S I WALKED
beside the rails, I began to catalogue everything I’d ever heard about people who had escaped North Korea. Most refugees tried the border at night, I knew, when darkness hid them from North Korean guards. I was aware that guards often shot escapees who ignored their warnings. They were notorious for that. And Chinese soldiers often patrolled the far side of the river and sent the refugees back if they caught them. I heard that some escapees committed suicide rather than return.

Not many people tried crossing the border in Hoeryong; security was too tight. Most people went across farther north. I briefly considered that, but it was too far to travel and came with too many risks. I didn’t want to ford the Tumen at night, either. I was still afraid of the dark. Another thing that worried me was that, growing up, I’d been told many times that the river itself was electrified with 33,000 volts of current. I didn’t know if that was possible—my understanding of electricity was woefully lacking—but I also wondered if the ice-covered water would be too dangerous to try.

The sun was high overhead. Maybe no one expects people to escape at one o’clock on a clear winter afternoon, especially during Kim Jong Il’s birthday week.

The farther I walked, the closer I drew to the river. Soon I could see China, a gray smudge across the ice to my left. Now the argument in my head became all in favor of going.
Mother needs money to get out of prison. I’ve run out of places to go for more than one night. Why not risk my life for a chance at something else? I’ll get money and return home and buy Mother’s freedom.

I didn’t want to examine my motives too closely. Whom was I running away for, my mother or myself? If I thought too much about that, I might discover something cold inside me.

I just said to myself:
I have no other choice.

As I walked, the highway came into view to my right. A hundred yards up that road was a security checkpoint manned by North Korean soldiers—“tiger skins”—with automatic rifles. They checked the IDs of every driver and of the few walkers who came by. I expected they would stop me and my little adventure would be over. I would have to turn back toward hunger and isolation.

I walked on, stepping on the wooden ties that secured the steel rails to the earth. No one stopped me. I couldn’t see any soldiers milling around near the railroad tracks either. Where had they gone? Had they chased someone into the woods? With every step, my heart trembled a little more. If I’d known the Bible at that time, I would probably have thought of Moses parting the Red Sea. But I could only think of getting a bullet in the back.

Twenty yards more. My heart louder. Nothing. No one.

I was ten yards from the point where the track swooped right along a curve in the bank. The security checkpoint hovered in my peripheral vision. I saw figures now, but no one called to me. Instead of following the curve of the tracks, I stepped quickly to the left and scooted down the bank toward the river, twenty yards away. The ice covering the water was hidden by tall rushes and trees.

I ran to the little copse of trees and pushed my way through them. I dug my shoes into the silty soil at the river’s edge, getting enough dirt on them to steady my way on the ice. I’d often played on river ice as a boy. I knew how to walk it.

Am I doing this?
I thought.
Is it real?
I was breathing hard from excitement. The absence of soldiers seemed like an invitation to escape. It was as if the universe had arranged itself for these particular five minutes to leave the border open to me.

But I was paranoid. What if it was a trap? What if the soldiers had hidden themselves in the rushes so as to entice me into escaping, and were waiting to pounce? I almost fell over in my hurry.

I broke through the last line of reeds and rushed onto the ice. China was seventy yards away. I knew the ice was thin in some parts. I’d heard of people falling through in a dash for freedom and freezing to death. Their bodies were found downstream in the spring, bloated and rotten.

A noise sounded behind me, a long, drawn-out yell. The soldiers! I glanced back in terror. It wasn’t the tiger skins at all but people driving on the highway. They’d seen me and called out,
“Whooooooaaaaaah!”
I thought,
Are they yelling to the guards?
But no, they’d just never seen anyone try to escape in the daytime. Their yells were sounds of pure surprise.

I ran toward the center of the river, the sand on the bottom of my shoes scratching at the ice. The opposite shore was bouncing in my vision. I was shaking with fear but making good progress. The ice, I’m sure, groaned beneath my weight, but my ears were filled with the sound of my heartbeat.
Just let me make it,
I thought.
Just let me get there and I will be able to live for the first time in so long.

I slipped and ran across the ice, the tails of my coat flapping in the breeze. The roars of the people on the highway grew more and more distant. I reached the opposite shore and dashed for the tall reeds growing out of the mud. I had to catch my breath. It was as if I’d dared myself to do something I never thought I’d try—and I had done it. I was in China. I was shaking with nerves and excitement.

Chapter

I
WASN’T SAFE YET
. I knew that Chinese soldiers and border guards patrolled the banks of the Tumen. And about three hundred yards downriver, there was a bridge used by trucks carrying goods and by the very few North Koreans with permission to enter China. It was heavily guarded. I could just make out its spindly form against the blue sky. If I could see them, they could see me.

All of a sudden, a black bird landed on a thick reed above my head and began to caw. My heart twisted in my chest. A raven! In North Korea, the raven is a symbol of death, known for landing on corpses. My nerves were so jumpy that I thought the bird was calling to Chinese soldiers.
Here! Here is the North Korean defector!
It made no sense, but I couldn’t even bend down to throw a rock at the bird. Its cries were so loud in that little thicket.

I crept farther into the foliage and reached the other side. When I pushed the last bunch of reeds aside, I saw the riverbank, then snow and pines, and through them the pale trace of a trail.

The raven wouldn’t stop cawing. I ran for the trail. I made it to the track, seeing no one. All I could hear was the wind in the pines.

It was about 2:30 p.m. My stomach was growling. I needed to find food and a place to rest for the night. I couldn’t walk along the highway I knew was about a mile away. The risk of being spotted was too great, and the drivers would know from my face and my clothes that I was a North Korean refugee. I decided to skirt through the mountains.

I walked up the riverbank and cut toward the rising slope, my feet crunching through the snow. After ten minutes, I began to see houses ahead, some small and not well cared for, others stately and big. The homes of people with money.

Go to the rich people,
I thought.
They will be better able to take care of you.

My heart was still pounding in my eardrums, but I was confident of finding help. Most of the people along this river were descendants of North Koreans. They spoke the language; they knew how things were in my country. My mother had found a second mom here.

I knocked on a door. It opened almost immediately. A man, maybe forty-five, broad face, Korean features.

“I was wondering if you could give me some leftover food.”

He took me in. The clothes. My dirty face.

“Get away from here!” he cried. His eyes were wide and staring. What was the matter with him?

“I’m hungry, please . . .”

He slammed the door in my face. I turned away in shock.

My spirit was in turmoil. I might have expected this in North Korea, but that was because of the famine. The people there were selfish because they had to be. But here there was plenty of food! I didn’t understand.

The tremor of a thought went through my mind: what if people are cruel not because of circumstances, but because they just are? I didn’t want to believe it.

But the next hour confirmed it. I went to house after house, all of them big and well kept. Some had new cars or small trucks in the driveways, unimaginable luxuries for a North Korean. Sometimes an occupant opened the door a crack. I would see one black eye, a tuft of dark hair, sallow skin. I couldn’t even tell if it was the face of a man or a woman.

“Please, I’m from North Korea. Would you . . .”

I rarely got further than that. One woman’s face seemed to go into a spasm. “Get the hell out!” she shouted.

The Tumen River near Hoeryong wasn’t a popular place to escape into China; it was too heavily patrolled. So maybe these people had little experience with refugees like me.

Helping a North Korean wasn’t without risk, I knew. If caught, a Chinese person might face a fine of a few thousand
yuan.
It wasn’t a small amount of money, but it wasn’t a firing squad. I understood why North Koreans didn’t assist me, but I couldn’t comprehend why the Chinese, who had so many more resources, also refused to help.

My heart turned against the world at that moment. I thought:
Human beings are hard and faithless. Have I come to China only to starve?

Finally I came to an abandoned house that had no front door to keep me out. Inside, I found broken things—dishes, chairs—strewn about. I went right to the kitchen, and when I pulled open a drawer, I heard a rolling sound. I ducked down and peered inside.
Sweet potato,
I said to myself. A small one, with dirt encrusted on the skin, but that didn’t bother me. I grabbed the vegetable, brushed off most of the dirt with my sleeve, took a bite, quickly chewed, and swallowed.

My stomach erupted. A feeling of spicy heat. It wasn’t a sweet potato, I realized, but a ginger root. I wanted to throw up. My stomach twisted and flipped. I ran out of the house looking for water, but there wasn’t a stream or brook nearby. I haven’t been able to eat ginger since.

I walked along the stone and dirt path that curled around the base of a small mountain with a worn-away summit. Trees came into view, but not the pines I was used to. These were fruit trees, neat rows of them. A farm.

My mouth began to water. I wondered what kind of exotic fruits they grew here, maybe apples or pears. There was a man cutting back the branches of a bare tree. I gave him a wide berth—he might be the owner, and I’d had enough of rich people.

I headed for another farmhouse four hundred yards away. It looked half abandoned, the panes of dirty glass and broken farm implements along the side of the cinderblock wall.
This looks like a North Korean house,
I thought.
A poor man lives here.
My stomach ached and gurgled from the ginger.

I knocked on the door and a man opened it. He was badly dressed, his clothes dirty and torn at the knees and elbows.

I gave him my little speech. His eyes brightened.

“Of course I will help you. I have to! You’re my compatriot.”

He invited me in. The house was unbelievably dirty. I’d never seen such a house, even in North Korea. My second dream of China was dashed. Not everyone had money.

The man brought me into the kitchen and sat me down. He was talking in Korean, bubbling with enthusiasm. I saw that he had a good heart.

He put some dishes on the table: white rice and something reddish that stank to high heaven. I recognized the food, decomposed tofu, a traditional Chinese dish in this region. It wasn’t what I’d hoped for, but I dug in with chopsticks and ate. Next was an eggplant dish. I finished it within a couple of minutes. I was ravenous and couldn’t worry about manners.

My plate was empty. I could have eaten the same meal again, but I was too shy and too distressed by my reception in China to ask for more. I did manage to ask for a cigarette. The man smiled and offered me some loose cigarettes. I took them and he lit one for me with a plastic lighter, which he then handed to me. I bowed my head slightly and slipped the lighter and the other cigarettes into my pocket. Then he reached into his pocket and handed me some bills.

I looked at them. I knew little about Chinese money and had trouble telling how much I had. Was it eighteen
yuan
or a hundred eighty? Finally I figured it out. Eighteen
yuan.
I thanked the man.

I was so happy having the money that I even thought of going back to North Korea with it. I could use the cash to bribe the guards at my mother’s prison. But it was worth less than three dollars. I wouldn’t have done much good with that.