A Dream of Lights (19 page)

I was stuck between two choices, both life-threatening. One, a maybe – that ditch, those spikes, and if not them, the long journey ahead to a safety that was dubious at best. The other, a definite death for the little boy snuggled against me, this tiny thing that had driven me up this mountainside and had left me with this terrible choice that really was no choice at all.

“I could die,” I whispered.
And so could this baby
, I thought.
A slow, horrible, painful death.

Grandfather nodded.

“But I could’ve done earlier today. Or yesterday. Or last week. Couldn’t I? Or the time the guard… or… or when I spat in his face, or my first day here, or when Father was shot, or with that tablet… or…”

I wrapped my arms round myself and the baby. I drew in another deep breath, trying to steady myself, calm myself.

He nodded. “But out there, now, if anyone tries to hurt you, or threaten you, you must fight back.”

“I know.” I nodded, and from my belt I pulled the knife that I’d kept hidden under my bed. “I will.”

He sighed, and I knew what he was thinking –
What has this place turned us into?
But I would fight back now. I’d do whatever it took.

He glanced through the fence and back at me. “And don’t think about how far it is, to the border,” he said. “Just think of one step forward. Always one step.”

“I know, I know.” I tried to smile at him, letting his words build me up, fill me with courage and confidence. “One step at a time.”

He was nodding again. “And once you’ve made it to the town, you can make it out of the country and to China.”

He bent down to the ground, scooping away the snow that had fallen into the hole, and pulling up the broken fencing.

“When you’ve made it to China you must carry on because if they find you there, they’ll send you back. Keep heading south, through Laos, and into Thailand, and there you can go to the embassy and claim asylum. They’ll send you to South Korea, and then,” he paused, standing up again, pulling something from his pocket and handing it to me, “you can find our family.”

I looked at what he had placed in my hand – the postcard. “I forgot about this,” I said. I tucked it into my pocket and crouched down. Then I took a deep breath and nodded at my grandfather standing above me.

The hole was small and the ground was wet and slippery and difficult. I crawled on to my side, driving my fingers into the snow and pulled my body forward, my feet slipping behind me. I glanced at the fence above me, the edges of the metal sticking down, tracing over my face, scratching at my skin, catching on my clothes; like tendrils, like fingers clawing at me to keep me, to stop me, to hold me still, until daylight came and I was found, or the light passed over us and we were caught.

But I kept going, kept pulling forward and the fence passed over me and I was out on the other side. I looked up, the light coming my way now, soft and sweeping, quietly seeking us out, and I dropped to the ground at the edge of the ditch and rolled on to my side.

Surely I’ll be camouflaged
, I thought,
covered in all this snow.

The light passed over me, and the ditch with its spikes still visible glared up at me. A creature was impaled on one, its eyes empty and dry, its fur caked in dried blood, and I sucked in a deep breath and looked away. Darkness returned and I stood up, hurrying back to the fence, to Grandfather.

“Promise me something,” I said, staring into the glint of his eye. “If I don’t make it, come down there and kill me. Don’t let me lie there dying.” It was stupid and I knew it. He couldn’t climb down there; he could never climb out again.

But still he nodded. “I promise,” he said. “But, Yoora, you have to hurry now. Get across and don’t look back, keep going. Remember, don’t think about how far it is, just think one foot in front of the other, one step, then another, and you’ll make it, and you can find your mother and a way out of this country. You promise
me
that?”

“I promise,” I said quietly.

I turned. I looked in front of me and I could see the edge of the ditch, but not the other side. I could hear death calling me from the depths. I took a moment, trampled down the snow, dragged some away with my foot, steadied my breathing, cleared my head and moved the baby on to my back.

I was going.

And with everything I had, I would run at that ditch, and I would think only of survival. That I
would
make it. I
would
live. I
would
land on the other side and I
would be free
. And behind me Grandfather would be willing me on, urging me forward, holding his breath as I jumped, waiting for me to shout back that I had made it. Because I would.

I would.

I ran. Too quickly the edge came up and I jumped. Launched myself forward with a shout of effort and determination in my throat.

The ground left me. The air welcomed me, holding me, guiding me. My eyes wide, waiting.

And I landed. Roughly on my front. I could feel the ground underneath me, the snow on my hands, my fingertips digging into it. My legs dangled over the side and I scraped and clambered, grunting with effort, knowing those spikes were waiting for me. I felt my foot catch something, couldn’t see what it was, and I felt my trousers rip.

I pulled and pulled, and slowly, gradually, I made it to the top. I stood up and moved the baby round to my front, next to my skin, my wet fingers reaching down to his feather-like hair, and I saw him breathe gently in and gently out, and I sighed.

I lifted my head and stared back through the darkness, to where I knew Grandfather’s eyes still searched for me.

“I love you,” I said, as loud as I dared.

A moment later his ghostly reply came to me. “I love you both.”

I knew I would never see him again and it hurt so much, but I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t wait.

With the help of someone I loved, I had done something I had never heard of anyone doing before me – I had escaped. And yes, I was alone,
we
were alone, but we were free.

I walked.

I sat and I rested.

I ate some of the food Grandfather had given me.

I fed the baby, as yet unnamed.

I walked some more.

And as I walked, I thought of the prison.

I wondered if Grandfather was sleeping in his bed, or was staring at those objects he’d brought from the fields. I wondered how the hut now felt with only him in it, and if he felt as lonely and as lost as me.

And I remembered sharing laughter with my friend as we watched the guard slip over in the mud, our stifled giggles at each other as our cheeks bulged with berries, remembered watching her hands clasp against nothing as she tried to catch a frog, and the look of wonder in her eyes as we listened to the song of a thrush in the trees.

I thought about the flower I had found, the smell of pine trees around me, the leaves and branches often tipped with frost, the low morning mist over the fields.

And the woman who had helped me give birth.

And despite all the pain and the heartache and the suffering the prison had caused me, I felt strangely sad to be leaving it.

The snow and the wind stopped, and while the sun was still down I trudged along and up through the hills and mountains that had been my view for so long, and even though I looked out for gaps or detours, going around when I could instead of up, trying to make the walk easier or shorter, it was still so very hard. Up and up I climbed, over icy ground that I could barely see, my feet slipping as I grabbed at thorny branches, pushed through bushes that leered from the darkness and clawed out and tore at my clothes and pulled at my hair and made me wince in pain, clambered across rocks on my hands and knees with my skin tearing and my hands bleeding, leaving behind me a trail of bloody fingerprints. And all with my tiny baby held to me in the makeshift sling.

Yet he didn’t cry, or even murmur. And countless times I peeled away the layers of clothing to stare down at his delicate and vulnerable face, placing my fingers on his chest to feel the heart that I hoped was still beating.

On and on I clambered, and my body screamed at me and my head spun and every few steps I wanted to stop. The woman’s words played over and over in my head – ‘
You seen the mountains? You going to get over them?
’

Am I?
I thought.
Am I going to get over them?

I wanted so desperately to sit down, to lie down, to close my eyes, to sleep. So desperately. But what if I did? Would I wake again? Open my eyes agan? Stand up again? Sometimes, most times, every lift of a foot was an effort, yet other times I would suddenly find I couldn’t remember the last few minutes, and I would wonder how it was that I was still awake and I was still moving.

Hours must have passed. Slowly my adrenalin waned and the cold came to me. I peeled off one of my layers, a shirt of Grandmother’s, and wrapped it round my head and face, and I curled my stiff hands into balls and drew them up my sleeves.

On and on. Further and further. Higher and higher.

I’m so tired
, I thought.
So tired.

I stopped a moment, my head spinning again, my hands shaking, as I stretched them out to rest against a rock, and with the sky beginning to lighten, I turned around to see the red haze of sunrise lifting in the distance.

Are you looking up at that sky, Grandfather?
I thought.
Are you thinking and worrying about me, as I am about you? Hoping I’m all right? Hoping I’m still alive?

A gust of wind blew across the mountainside, lifting and swirling my hair around my head, waking me a little as the cold hit my face. I closed my eyes and breathed its freshness deep into my lungs, and I turned and took another step. And another. And another.

But I was so tired, and everything, every move of a foot or an arm, every breath in or out, every second with my eyes still open, was painful.

I’ll rest a few minutes
, I thought, and I sat down.
Just a few. I’ll close my eyes for just a little while and then I’ll carry on.

I leant back and closed my eyes, and I could feel sleep pulling me and calling me and I don’t know if it was cold, or snowy, if the ground was up or down or hard or soft because with my eyes closed I was no longer there.

I was drifting away. Drifting away to some place in my head. With food. And warmth. And lights. And there was my father coming towards me. Holding his hand out to mine and smiling at me. I smiled at him too, and held my hand out to his.

And I was drifting away.

I walked with him thinking we were speaking but couldn’t hear a word, and I thought we were holding hands but I couldn’t feel his touch. But he was with me, smiling at me, his love and compassion pouring from him as he looked at me.

I’ll stay with you, Father
, I thought.
For always.

But his smile began to slip and the lights began to fade and the cold was growing again inside me and something jabbed into my stomach, then prodded at my arm and at my face. Suddenly I was awake again and I managed to open my eyes just a crack, trying to make sense of where I was and what was happening, but all I could see was the blur of colour and the mixture of darker and lighter. But I knew without doubt that I wasn’t alone. Someone was standing over me.

Not a guard
, I thought,
please, not a guard, or a soldier. Please.

From my chest came the tiny cry of my baby and I draped my arm around him.

And I breathed slowly in and slowly out, and I tried to open my eyes further so I could focus, tried to blink and blink, to stay awake, to move, to stand up, to run, to keep going and find that escape.

But there were hands on my stomach and at my chest and touching my face. Hands at my mouth, water at my lips that was so good. Kind hands that brushed away my hair and wiped my sore skin and lifted my head so I could drink some more.

She sat with me as I slowly came round; an old woman with a drawn face, short messy hair and dark eyes that gave nothing away. She watched me like a hawk, but didn’t say a word, and when I started looking around, when I opened my mouth to ask if this was where she had found me, halfway down the other side of the mountain, she put her finger to her lips to silence me and stood up.

I tried to remember what had happened, didn’t think I’d even made it to the top, yet here I was, on the way down.

She couldn’t have carried me
, I thought, looking at her.
I would remember that, I’m sure. Then I must’ve, I must’ve made it this far.

She beckoned me with her head and slowly I stood up, and with a hand supporting my baby, I put one careful foot in front of the other and followed her.

It never occurred to me not to trust her. She could’ve left me there, ignored and forgotten, a bundle of rags sheltering against the rocks. And I, we, would’ve died and nobody would’ve known.

So I followed her, alongside a field, past a few trees and down a frozen pathway, to a little wooden hut with a broken fence and tiles missing from the roof. I could feel the warmth as soon as I touched the door, and she led me in and indicated a seat by a small open fire.

“Thank you,” I muttered, but she shook her head at me and again placed a finger to her lips.

I could feel the tears welling in my eyes but didn’t let them fall, and as I peeled away my layers of clothing to feed the baby, I thought I could see the melancholy on the woman’s face and wondered what past she had had and why she was being so kind to me.

The day went on in silence yet in more comfort than I could remember. She fed me every now and then, and gave me hot drinks, and slowly I could feel some strength coming back to me, and when the sun fell back down, she heated up some water so I could wash myself and the baby, and made me up a bed next to the fire. I slept feeling like the most important person in the world.

I woke twice in the night to feed the baby, and each time I saw the twinkle of the woman’s dark eyes as they reflected the dying embers of the fire, but the last time I woke, with the sun straining through the glass, I glanced over to see her, and she was gone. On the floor next to me was an old bottle full of water, a bowl of grey rice and a warm coat.

Pulling the blankets around me and the baby, I stood up and tiptoed across to the window, and as I fed him, I watched the dark form of the woman walking away, the sunrise in front of her lifting the sky from deep to lighter blue, a hue of orange stretching up and away.

The countryside felt so calm now, the snow covering the mountains and everything in silence, frost glistening like magic on trees as the winter sun danced and played on their branches. It was beautiful. If you didn’t know what happened back there, in that place over the mountains, you might never believe it.

Because the truth, it seemed, could be stranger, more disturbing and more shocking than anything you could possibly imagine.

Yet I was here. I’d made it over the mountains and I was on my way.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you.”

The sun was behind me; I was heading west. I had a warm coat on and some food in my stomach. My baby was clean, and so was I, and in the fresh breeze my hair flapped around in the wind, and I felt hopeful.

For miles and miles I walked on and on and slowly the snow thinned, the countryside changed from white to glistening frost, to frozen mud, and walking became easier if no less tiring. I listened to the air breathing through the branches of the trees, whispering to me sounds of comfort, but as the hours and the miles passed and tiredness and hunger came back to me, those sounds felt less like comfort and more like danger. A soldier hiding in the tree, perhaps, whispering to his colleague, watching me, waiting to catch me.

How far away from the camp I was, I had no idea. Had I been noticed as missing yet? Was Grandfather still alive? Unless I was captured, these were questions I would never be able to answer.

And what if the guards had found that woman’s house? What if they’d found her, questioned her, threatened her? What if she’d told them she’d found me? What then?

They’d be coming for me. They’d be right behind me.

Yet there was nothing I could do but carry on. Keep going. Keep trying. So I sucked in a deep breath and shook the thoughts and worries from my head. Knowing I must eat, must keep strong, I bent down to the ground and turned over a large stone where I found a scurry of insects and, grabbing them one by one before they woke enough to hide, I chewed them all down.

The earth was so much more fertile here, hadn’t been ravaged for years by starving fingers, and so I picked at whatever I could find as I went, feeding and filling myself, because I knew I must.

I picked and ate leaves off evergreen shrubs as I passed by, found the remnants of an apple that must’ve been preserved by the cold, underneath an otherwise bare tree, and ate it anyway. It felt so sweet, so soft and juicy, melting on my tongue and sliding down my throat. Oh, it was good.

I walked and I walked, all the time listening for the sound of a truck coming towards me, and every now and then glancing over my shoulder and scanning around me.

The sun reached its peak and began its way down again. I had to stop a while to rest my feet and to feed the baby, but before I set off, I foraged the earth for more insects, eating plenty and saving plenty, stuffing them inside a spare sock.

I was tired. Exhausted. I wanted to sleep. The soles of my feet were sore, my toes rubbed on the sides of my shoes and my heels were blistered. My back hurt, my body ached, my mind was a confused jumble of not just the last few days, but of everything that had got me to this point. Everything that had fallen into place from that one dream and that one person.

Sook.

Why did he still come into my head? Why when I thought of him did my stomach flip and my chest feel tight? I hated him. Didn’t I? I wished I could forget him, wished I could at least understand this tie I felt to him. And as I stood again and one foot plodded in front of the other, heading, I hoped, still west, to the town where Mother was, I wondered in which direction my old village was, how difficult it would be to find it, what Sook was doing there right at that very moment.

I wanted to go back there. I wanted to see him. That face. That sneer. I sighed, deep and heavy. That smile when he looked at me. That warmth I’d felt.

Distance stretched out interminably in front of me. Dusk was coming and night-time would not be long after, and with it would come darkness that would swallow me whole. I was so tired. I wanted to stop, curl up on the ground like an animal and fall asleep.

What had got me this far? Hope? Or love? Or just plain luck? How far would it keep taking me?

The dying light played tricks on me, and Grandfather’s face loomed from shadows and darkness, towards me and away again in front of me, as if beckoning me onwards and onwards. Watching him, and with that hope that I might, just might, find my mother, I kept one foot going in front of the other.

A vague outline of a town appeared on the horizon, slightly to my right, and I veered that way, through a field, along a dirt path, to the start of a pavement cracked and broken. There were no cars, a few bicycles, people heading home from work. I felt their eyes watching me. I felt a stranger. I felt naked and obvious.

I needed to stop for the night and rest. And in the morning I would need to find someone to speak to, to ask directions to Mother’s town. Or find a railway station as Grandfather had said, and follow the tracks. I tried not to think of her not being there, but couldn’t stop thinking that by morning I could’ve been seen, found, sent back, and I could wake up again in that hut, or in solitary. Or not wake at all.

If I was legal, I would have identification papers
, I thought
, a permit to be in a town not my residence, a visa to travel there. I have nothing. What if they hear the baby cry, realise I’m a stranger, that I’m homeless?

I wasn’t free. And would never be while I stayed in that country.

They were all guards, just different types. Prison guards, policemen, government people, and all those like Min-Jee who watched everyone else, reporting back tales of crimes committed, strange activity, suspicious people, and many times, too many times, they were made up to save their own skins.

We were surrounded by them. It was one great big prison of a country, with borders for barriers and our Dear Leader, all-powerful and all-knowing, ruling over us unquestionably. A self-styled god. Controlling.

My eyes are open, Father
, I thought,
and you were right.

I knew the argument against – not even an argument but a belief, a way of life. What a good leader He was, how He provided for us, guided us, His wisdom, His skills, His knowledge, and I truly didn’t know what to think of their, everyone’s, commitment to Him.

Was it honourable? Was it right? I only knew what
I
thought now, what
I
believed after what
I’d
seen and experienced for myself – that
I
had no commitment to him;
I
didn’t believe any longer.

I wanted the freedom to disagree, to put forward my own arguments, my own opinions and exercise my own judgement. To have choices, and for my choices to be respected. And more than anything, I wanted that too for this little baby clinging to me and relying on me.

And that I could never have, if I didn’t escape.

I stumbled forward through the streets, hoping to find somewhere to rest, trying to avoid the glances of people walking home, all with a purpose and direction. There were no signs to tell me what town I was in, or how far it was to the next village, which direction the border was, or even what road I was on.

An apartment block loomed through the dusk, perhaps three storeys high, grey and old with broken windows on the ground floor, and curtains or blinds at others with the dimmest of lights leaking through. I glanced briefly over my shoulder and headed towards it, peering as best I could through dirty glass into a darkened room: it looked empty. On one side of the block was a large door, and I walked over, pushed it open and stepped inside.

A corridor stretched forward into dark and gloom, all concrete and hard edges: bare walls, but for a couple of doors, and the obligatory paintings of our Dear Leader and his father our Great Leader. A flash of colour, of red.

Their eyes followed me from behind the polished glass free from fingerprints or dust, watching me from their round faces and smug grins, waiting for me, judging me, laughing at me with silent pleasure for what they had done to me. Believing, I was sure, that they were absolutely, completely, totally correct in what they did, that I deserved everything that had happened, that I needed to be re-educated, to learn how to love them again and honour them and respect them.

I stared at their faces. I’d seen the worst of humanity in so many, and the best in so few.

I turned away, and pushed through the door opposite and into the ground-floor apartment I’d seen from outside. I felt around it, my feet shuffling, my hands stretching forward and exploring carefully. The last of the day’s light filtered through the windows and glass dulled with dirt, showing me a room empty and dark and dirty. Particles of dust I’d kicked up swam in the dying light, tickling my nose, and the cold draught through the broken glass pushed them around in ever faster, then ever decreasing circles.

I moved through the other rooms, three in all. In one was a cupboard with doors hanging off, another had a wardrobe that had fallen to its side, and finally there was a kitchen with no cooker or fridge or even a table, just scratches deep in the floor, and pipes that groaned and banged when I turned on the taps.

I found nothing but a jumper with a hole in the shoulder and loose wool dangling from the cuff, but I reminded myself it was shelter for the night, somewhere to hide, and a jumper I could wrap round my baby.

I sat on the dusty floor and pulled out the mixture of leaves and insects I had collected on the way and some of what Grandfather had given me. And I pulled out the postcard too, resting it in front of me while I rubbed at my sore feet and aching legs.

I felt a glimmer of excitement, as if I’d been sleeping for years and finally now had woken. Ahead of me, waiting for me, I hoped, I believed, was my freedom, and somewhere, beyond that, was the city of lights.