Dear Leader (29 page)

‘Look, we only have one hundred yuan. I won’t drink. You can have one, though.’

Young-min’s eyelids trembled as he looked at me in desperation. The dark eyes that I knew so well, usually full of loyalty and friendship and the spark of musical genius, were empty. His bloodshot gaze was tainted only with disappointment and spite. What else could I do? I stood my ground, because I felt the 100-yuan note was the only thing we had to hold on to. I was also exhausted and on edge, and if we lost even one yuan out of that hundred, it would destroy me. So instead of the drink, we ended up exchanging the 100 yuan for two 50-yuan notes. I was more fearful of losing Young-min than of meeting soldiers who would seize me. If we split the money, at least one of us might make it. Young-min sighed as I handed him his 50-yuan note.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s get drunk out of our heads when we get to South Korea. But you keep the money, it’s better for one person to look after it.’

I made him keep it, but took the opportunity to tease him. ‘Don’t think it’s your money just because I’m giving it to you. It’s not to spend, it’s to let you think, “I’ve got money to buy food!” when you feel hungry.’

‘Bastard. So that’s why you’ve been so full of energy, because you’ve been holding the money!’

‘That’s right,’ I smiled. ‘And I should have said this earlier: you know when we ran in a panic out of the church? Well, we might have to do that again, so whenever there’s a fork in the road, just take the one on the right. That way, you won’t have to stop to think, and
we’ll be less likely to lose each other. Look, I can’t and won’t make it without you. You’ve got Mr Shin’s number in your head, right? That’s the only number we have to share if we split.’

The first 3 yuan we spent was on a small bar of soap. Our hunger was our own concern, but if we didn’t keep up appearances, we would arouse suspicion.

We gave up on churches and decided to look for South Korean businesses, as that seemed to be the only other open door into a network of South Koreans. We looked out for anything we might recognise, such as Samsung, Hyundai or LG. Once, we went into a shop with an imitation ‘Samsong’ logo outside, and were chased out with insults in Chinese. At night, we’d sleep near a source of water such as a public fountain. We skipped breakfast, but around eleven in the morning we’d buy some bread for 2 yuan and share it again in the evening.

After four days on the streets, our money and stamina both ran out. On the fifth day, we didn’t have anything to eat, and I felt very weak. We came to a dumpling stall, and I asked Young-min for his last 10 yuan so we could buy some food.

‘What 10 yuan?’ Young-min asked.

‘You’ve 10 yuan left. Come on, let’s buy some food.’

‘I don’t have any money!’ Young-min grumbled at my insistence, and showed me his empty pockets.

Although it was a small amount of money, or perhaps because it was all we had, I had been very careful with the sums. I pulled him into an alley and added up everything to show him he was wrong. I repeated my calculations again and again, and it was clear he should still have 10 yuan left.

‘So you’re going to keep lying? What are you hiding from me? Did you eat without telling me?’ Young-min avoided my gaze, picked a
weed and began to tear its stalk into long shreds. I despised the very sight of his fingers as he plucked at it. ‘Tell me!’ I demanded. ‘Look at me: if you’ve eaten, tell me straight!’

Young-min hurled the remains of the stalk to the ground and dusted the dirt off his hands. ‘Yes, I used the 10 yuan,’ he said. ‘I used it for something really important. So what are you going to do about it?’

I shot back, ‘Don’t make excuses about things being “really important”. If you’ve eaten, just confess to it like a man.’

‘All right! Yes, I did do something without telling you. I bought a blade.’

Young-min took a razor from the side pocket of his jacket. I was about to shout, ‘Why?’ but the word stuck in my throat. When we were worried enough about our next meal, why would he buy a blade? Why would Young-min buy a blade without telling me?

His eyes welled with tears as he continued, ‘We won’t ever make it to South Korea. We were stupid even to think of it. I believed meeting a South Korean would solve everything, but that’s not true. We’ve been on the street for days, and they’ll definitely catch us soon. And then what? I don’t care for my own life, but the Party will destroy my family too if they take us back and make us confess. So I bought this blade to kill myself with, so those bastards won’t get what they want.’

His words rang in my ears, and the ringing would not stop. Seeing that blade on his palm, I was overcome with an impulse to kill myself first, out of rage. At the thought of such a blade in the hand of my only source of strength, I was helpless. Having no hope was far worse than having no money.

Seeing my despair, Young-min said, ‘No, let’s not be like this. Should we try my cousin one more time? Maybe if he sees me face to face, things will be different.’

His eyes were bloodshot and he spoke rapidly, as if possessed. I was frustrated that besides his thoughts of suicide, he still clung to
the hope that his cousin might help, and realised that this was what must be making him weak. ‘You heard as clearly as I did,’ I said. ‘He doesn’t consider you to be family any more.’

‘He probably panicked with the police around. If I explain in my own words that I didn’t murder anyone, he’ll get it. Even Mr Shin said that if he gets involved, we’ll have no problem making it to South Korea. Come on, let’s try one more time.’ I turned to walk away, but Young-min continued, ‘There’s nothing else! It’s the only hope left for us now.’

I decided that it would be impossible to persuade him otherwise, so I turned round again and said that we could think about it after finding a place to stay the night in the countryside. Young-min stared ahead but didn’t say no, and we headed out towards the fields.

By the time we reached the first village it was dark. My legs kept wobbling and I had to make a real effort to stop myself from collapsing on the spot and giving up. We knocked on a few doors, but didn’t have the courage to speak. When yet another household slammed the door on us, Young-min slid down onto the ice, right there on the threshold.

‘It’s because there’s two of us,’ he reasoned. ‘Maybe it would be all right during the day, but no one would welcome two strange men into their home at night. They might even suspect us of being the two wanted murderers and report us.’

We sat in silence for a while. The one streetlamp in the village shone a spotlight on our solitude. The night sky seemed unusually low, and I could sense a snowstorm coming.

Young-min mustered all his strength to rise to his feet again. He said, ‘How about this: we separate and each finds somewhere to stay. That might be easier on our hosts too. And we’ll meet up under that tree over there in the morning.’

I asked, ‘What if we don’t find anyone who’ll put us up for the night?’

‘Then we keep on trying. At least the tree won’t be going anywhere.’

I looked where Young-min was pointing. About twenty metres away, a large tree stood alone, the guardian of the village. We said goodbye. Young-min stayed behind in the village to try more houses, while I headed on to the next. I felt uneasy as Young-min earnestly waved me off, but his smile allowed me to turn and walk away.

WITHOUT YOUNG-MIN, WALKING
along the road was not just lonely, but terrifying. This was the first stretch of unbroken silence I’d experienced since crossing the Tumen River, and every step I took unsettled me further. Every now and then, I forced a cough to reassure myself that I was still alive. Sometimes I glanced behind me, mistaking the sound of my own footsteps for that of a stranger in pursuit. Perhaps because I had no food inside me, every time a gust of wind blew, my whole body seemed to sway with it. When I didn’t have the stamina to hold my arms up, I stopped trying to cover my ears with my hands, leaving them exposed to the wind. At first, they were sore. Then they began to lose feeling, and finally they became itchy, a sign that they were freezing. I had to put my hands back on them to warm them up, but it was so cold that as soon I took my hands out of my pockets, they hurt as if they were breaking off from my arms.

When I arrived near homesteads the dogs were more vicious than the cold. Every time I approached the gate of a farmhouse, a dog would greet me with a growl, lips curled back to bare its teeth. As I plucked up the courage to knock on a front door, the dogs of the village shouted to their masters, ‘Here is the murderer you’re looking for!’

I wandered the neighbouring village for more than hour, realising that Young-min had been naïve to think that he or I would be let into a home more readily on account of being a single stranger instead of one of a pair. I remembered Chang-yong, who had brought us dumplings while we hid in the mountains; Mr Shin, who had given
us 100 yuan and called it mere ‘pocket money’; and the old man at Longjing, who had fed us rice when all we asked for was water to wash our faces. While I was immensely grateful for their kindness, I despaired that I would not meet with such good luck again. With a new sense of urgency, I decided to turn around and set off back towards the village with the tree under which we’d promised to meet.

Although I noticed a few stables on the way, I wasn’t brave enough to spend the night outdoors on my own. If we had to spend another night under the freezing sky, I reasoned that it would be more comforting for us to do so together. I hoped that Young-min had come to the same conclusion and would be waiting for me beneath the tree. Even if he hadn’t managed to find shelter, he might have found some food to surprise me with.

But when I arrived under the tree, Young-min wasn’t there. Perhaps he had been fortunate enough to find a warm room for the night. As the darkness deepened, I had no choice but to spend the night alone, that tree my only companion. It was unbearably cold. Huddled beneath the tree, I counted the seconds out loud and waited for sunrise. As the winds changed, I shuffled round the tree to find better shelter. Icy tears trickled down my cheeks.

As blue gradually seeped through the night sky and morning approached, my vigil became more desperate. I endured the cold by mumbling Young-min’s name over and over again, blowing on my hands with my breath. Yet long after the allotted time had passed, Young-min did not appear. When heavy snow began to fall from milky clouds, I could not bear the cold any longer. I stumbled into a small building not far from the tree. It contained some machinery connected to a pipe that seemed to disappear beneath the hills, and I guessed that the building housed a pump.

Wind buffeted into the pump house through the small glassless windows, but I was grateful that my clothes remained dry and free from melting snow. This comfort was momentary, however, as the
space was cold as a tomb, its four walls like sheets of ice. When I decided I could not stand the cold any longer, I ran back outside. Sitting under the tree once more, I actually felt warmer, but my whole body was shaking. I bit my lips to keep my mouth shut, but my teeth clattered and I was unable to stop them.

More frightening than the cold was the thought of another night spent alone and in the open. I looked up at the sky, in the fear that it might be turning dark again soon. Suddenly, that wide sky shook as I teetered on the verge of collapse. I had to throw up although there was nothing in my stomach. When I sat down, I felt that my body was sinking further into the ground; and when I stood up, it seemed to sway from side to side as if I were on a swing.

As hard as I tried to decide on my next move, my brain would not focus on the decision. Despite my determination to gather my thoughts, my mind remained blank. The thought of not having eaten for several days was too painful to consider, until I was possessed by a sudden desire to find a stable and chew on hay. When I became conscious of this strange impulse, one of my poems floated into my mind. It was based on a story told to me by a beggar girl back home in North Korea. I was walking in Pyongyang when I saw her on the street. I knew that there was a food stall not too far away, so I asked what she most wanted to eat, something that she might share with her siblings. As we walked to the stall, she sobbed and told me her story.

THE MOST DELICIOUS THING IN THE WORLD

Three months ago, my brother said

The most delicious thing in the world

Was a warm corncob;

Two months ago, my brother said

The most delicious thing in the world

Was a roasted grasshopper;

One month ago, my brother said

The most delicious thing in the world

Was the dream he ate last night.

If my brother were alive today

What would he say this month, and next,

was The most delicious thing in the world?

When I wrote that poem, I had my table lamp switched off and I was crying. Even if I couldn’t see it with my own eyes, the terror in the child’s eyes and her hopes were too pitiful to face as words on the page. I hated the reality of hunger for that girl and her brother, and I had felt ashamed of myself. But when I came to find myself in the state of the poem’s protagonist, it wasn’t emotional in the way it had been when I had written it. It was distant and impotent. It seemed that my senses, once attuned to the faintest sound of rustling leaves, had shrivelled and been shattered by the cold winds. There was no poetry in hunger. North Korea was a nation without poetry. With only these last thoughts remaining, my body felt even heavier. I sat down in exhaustion and stared blankly at the sky.

An old woman passed by and startled me. ‘If you’ve crossed over from North Korea, don’t stay around here,’ she said. ‘Yesterday, the authorities swept through this village.’

It took me a while to comprehend her words, because my dulled senses were wandering aimlessly in the narrow confines of desperation. As I struggled to gather my mind into focus, one word stood out. Yesterday – wasn’t that the night Young-min had stayed in this village? Had he been caught? Yet the old woman made no mention of anyone being arrested. Young-min would have fled without a single glance behind him. Maybe he had run too far, become lost, and was looking for a way back. Or perhaps he had gone to find Mr Shin. Yanji city centre was not too far from here.