A DREAM OF LIGHTS

A DREAM OF LIGHTS Kerry Drewery A powerful and moving stand-alone novel for anyone who loved A GATHERING LIGHT or BETWEEN SHADES OF GREY, in which a teenage girl struggles against the odds for survival in a North Korean prison camp… From the author of A Brighter FearYoora is a teenage girl living in North Korea, dreaming of the lights of foreign cities while eking out a miserable existence in a rural northern village. But then she makes a mistake: she falls in love. With someone far removed from her social class. Someone dangerous to know. When tongues start to wag, her father is executed and she is taken to a prison camp in the mountains. There, escape seems even further from her grasp. But Yoora is about to learn an important lesson: love can surprise you, and it can come in many forms… For my children… Jess – female mannequins should be called ladykins Dan – remembering your wellies, bunny blanket and fireman’s hat and Bowen – no, I won’t say anything about kisses and heart shapes and feeling loved …because sometimes I wish you didn’t have to grow up. Contents Dedication (#uda1ffd9a-7b94-5815-9e06-8bcc7f2b9690) Chapter One (#ulink_073726f3-3056-5dd1-bbf6-18641031ec62) Chapter Two (#ulink_57372131-bbfa-561b-93ae-4dc4361319de) Chapter Three (#ulink_b9848c79-f4df-55dc-86fa-3467025ad468) Chapter Four (#ulink_53397e0b-20ea-5cc0-b19b-3b5392502c57) Chapter Five (#ulink_c6c86b1c-2d36-5170-b48f-e59ba2685463) Chapter Six (#ulink_d2d91faf-cbd6-516d-b0f1-2f12ad294eb9) Chapter Seven (#ulink_b1f8b54a-cf03-5ff4-af00-f817513e799e) Chapter Eight (#ulink_632d0f5f-f197-5770-967e-5f2063b94dce) Chapter Nine (#ulink_35062a04-44b1-5316-a517-3227e53276c0) Chapter Ten (#ulink_e97ae139-2fd8-5d41-99fb-fc36b9142ecd) Chapter Eleven (#ulink_f2b279c7-7727-5db7-8517-391d551544fe) Chapter Twelve (#ulink_5b08b70b-788e-5683-96cd-34ab028236c2) Chapter Thirteen (#ulink_d7ee0eef-78fa-5a72-a19c-b1f670c3e225) Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-one (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Twenty-nine (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-one (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Thirty-nine (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-one (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-five (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-six (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-seven (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-eight (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Forty-nine (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifty (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifty-one (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifty-two (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifty-three (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifty-four (#litres_trial_promo) Chapter Fifty-five (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo) Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo) Also by Kerry Drewery (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#ulink_cf7d8475-c0b4-5c50-bbff-ba8fce4901e0) It began with something so simple. A dream. Of a city like no city I had ever seen before, no city I could possibly have imagined. A city at night-time, down whose streets I floated, mesmerised, as I stared into the white headlights of cars flooding towards me, red trails following behind, more of them than I thought could be possible. Lines and rows and streams, speeding and blurring and hurrying past and around me and away into some distance, some destination, somewhere. A dream so vivid. Where I tilted back my head, and my eyes traced the buildings as they stretched for ever up into darkness, with windows lit orange or yellow or white. Another to my side with slatted blinds, half-drawn curtains, or windows bright with flowers in vases or pictures in frames or potted plants resting on sills. Around me, red jostled with green on street signs showing me where to go, or pink with blue on shopfronts, flashing neon letters or symbols, advertising cinemas or rooms or food. A dream so real that as I strolled down the narrow streets, I could breathe in the smells of food drifting from restaurants and takeaways, could taste the sweetness on my tongue without knowing what food it might be, and I could run my hands through the steam rising from cookers and ovens and hotplates, condensation like dewdrops on my skin. I could hear music blaring from bars as I passed, words I didn’t understand, rhythms thumping in my chest, and I watched people dancing in clothes of all sorts of colours and styles, and I felt the joy in their smiles. It was magical. And then I woke up. I woke up in the depths of our winter; so dark I could barely see my hands in front of my face, so cold frost was forming in my hair. I didn’t know buildings could be built that high and not fall over, or so many cars could fit on one road without crashing, or music could sound so alive, or clothes could be that bright, or food could be bought in shops and smell so delicious. It had been so real I expected the dew to be still on my fingers and the taste still on my tongue. But there was nothing. I was sixteen, had never been allowed a permit from the government to leave our village. Didn’t know, had never seen, what lay over the hills and past the fields, or what was at the end of the road that stretched past us, that maybe three cars had driven along since I was old enough to know what a car was. Maybe beyond us, I thought, in other villages, people have electricity to light their homes at night and the streets around them. Maybe they have enough fuel to keep the fire lit in winter, to stop the windows freezing up on the inside, and to keep the family warm enough so they don’t wake in the morning with lips that are blue and bones that are stiff. Maybe there are places like that somewhere here in North Korea. Maybe our capital, Pyongyang. Maybe that was the city I dreamt about. I sighed. Maybe it’s a vision our Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, has put in my head. Something He wanted me to see. On the mat next to me, I heard my father’s covers and blankets move. “Another bad dream, Yoora?” His words disappeared into a yawn. I rolled over to him. “A strange one,” I replied, and I described to him what I’d seen, with the best words I could summon, when so much of what I’d seen I had no words to describe. “Do you think it could be real?” I whispered. For a moment he said nothing. I listened to his breathing slow down and a cough catch in his throat, and I watched the tiniest reflection of light in his eyes as he shuffled over towards me. I felt his warm breath gentle on my face. “Yes,” he whispered in my ear. “Yes, it’s real.” “Where? Further south?” His hand took mine and rested it on his head, and I felt him nod slowly up and down. “Our capital? Pyongyang?” I asked, amazement and excitement prickling at me. “Do you think, do you think that maybe, maybe, if we work hard enough, we’d be allowed to go there?” He paused again, and I felt him roll over towards Mother, then back to me, and I listened to every breath he took as I waited. And waited. With seconds stretching like minutes, like hours, between us. “Father?” I whispered. “No, Yoora. Forget your dream, forget I said anything.” “What?” I reached my hand back to his face and felt wetness on my fingertips. “No.” He moved my hand, and I heard the rustle of his head moving side to side on the pillow. “Go back to sleep.” “But…?” “I said no.” His voice was firm, and as loud as I thought he would possibly dare without waking Mother. I stared through the darkness, not understanding what had just happened, searching for that twinkle of light in his eye, angry with him, and frustrated. I wanted to sit up and argue with him, demand he tell me where that place was, if it was real. I reached a hand out to touch him, to make him turn back round to me, but I stopped, thinking of Mother behind him. Why had he looked to her? Because he didn’t want to wake her? I pulled the covers up to my chin. I can wait, I thought. And I closed my eyes and brought those images back from my memory, of those people I had seen and food I had smelt and music I had heard. And I hoped they were real, somewhere here in my country, the best place in the world. “It was a beautiful place,” I whispered across the darkness. “I wish one day we could go there. Together.” There was no reply. (#ulink_f7909b99-f3ca-58df-bfb6-93ab9e5d241e) I woke the next morning, not in wonderment at some sight my imagination had shown me, but in hunger as my stomach rumbled, and in pain as my bones creaked against the cold. And I remembered the smells of the food. My body shook as I pulled on my clothes under the blankets, and I padded through from the back room to the other, which served as everything from my grandparents’ room at night, to the kitchen, dining and living room during the day. I rubbed my hands down my body to try and warm up. An image flashed in front of my eyes of tall buildings that looked like homes, comfortable, warm and welcoming. I stood in front of the fire Father had lit, but although the troughs and holes and gaps under the floorboards allowed some heat to cross the floor, the air above was cold enough for your breath to form clouds. I sat down at the table with my parents and grandparents and we gave thanks, as always, to our Dear Leader and His father before him, our Great Leader, for the food He’d provided for our breakfast, our maize porridge. And as we ate, a voice boomed from the speaker in the corner of the room telling us how lucky we were to have the food He provided, how we were so fortunate to live in North Korea, the country that had it so much better than any other in the world. “Our military strength is the pride of our nation,” the voice continued. “Our farmers are proud to give their produce to the government to feed our military and keep them strong to fight off our oppressors.” I glanced up and was shocked to see Father pressing his hands against his ears. “What are you doing?” I asked him. “You need to listen.” “I have a headache, Yoora,” he told me. “It’s too loud.” “But that’s so you can listen properly. That’s why there’s no volume control. Or off button, so you don’t miss anything.” I heard his sigh, heavy and long, and I heard the words muttered under his breath. “What have we created?” But I didn’t understand them. Not then. I watched him take his hands away, and for a moment, just a moment, he stared straight back at me. What was that I could see behind his eyes? Fear? Worry? A warning for me? Or maybe it was nothing: just my imagination seeing something that wasn’t there. He looked away. It was a Sunday, a day for volunteer work, our patriotic duty, and I stepped from the house into a cold winter morning, a thick mist hiding the fields and dark skeletons of trees trying to reach through. Stillness and calm stretched over everything. Silence but for my feet on the dirt path, the air through my lungs and the squeak of the bucket swinging in my hand. I passed groups of houses just like ours: two rooms, single-storey, joined together in rows of ten with one roof stretched across their length, each like a giant harmonica, and all in straight, ordered lines. I continued up the path, and on either side of me, the red and yellow of the small flags that lined our fields appeared from out of the mist. And people appeared too. Men and women, girls and boys, some older than me, some younger, all heading off for their day’s duty. Mine was up on the main road leading out of the village, as it had been for the last two months. I swept the gutters, I cleaned and washed the road, I weeded the borders and dug over the soil. For a mile in one direction and a mile in the other. And on the other side. Then, when I was finished, I started again. Mine was the cleanest stretch. And often, as I worked, I would imagine the face of our Dear Leader looking down on me, smiling at me, His hands and His Fatherly Love protecting me. But that day, something had changed. Something intangible, a question not even formed, a shadow in my mind that disappeared when I tried to look at it, because something didn’t make sense. I stopped, sat back pigeon-style and closed my eyes. I could see that food again, in boxes and cartons and wrappers, and I could see people eating it as they walked… and I could see those cars of shiny blue or silver or orange even… It’s real, I heard Father say again… and I saw those lights again… and those clothes… and people… and smiles… and music… thud thud thud. No, I thought, that’s not music. I opened my eyes. Marching towards me was our group leader, his boots like a drum on the surface of the road. “I’m sorry,” I muttered, grabbing my bucket again. But his hand smacked against my face and I was on the floor, my head spinning, the taste of blood in my mouth. He stared down at me with empty eyes. “Is this how you repay your country for the kindness it’s shown you? You think our Dear Leader would be pleased to see you wasting time daydreaming? You’re lazy. You won’t need a full day’s rations if you haven’t done a full day’s work!” I scurried to my feet, keeping my head down and plucking frantically at the earth, pulling out weeds and stones, so angry and disappointed with myself. But still those words of Father’s echoed in my head, and I stole a glance up the road and back again. There were no cars. Not one. How could that place be real? In the kitchen that evening, after twelve hours of work and while my grandparents rolled out their beds for the night, I took the white cloth from the drawer and bowed low to the only two pictures allowed to hang on the wall in our house – our Dear Leader and our Great Leader. And as I dusted their round, smiling faces with their red cheeks and glinting eyes, I muttered my apologies and asked for their forgiveness. “Your mother says you were in trouble today.” I turned to see Father standing next to me, his eyes flickering over the bruise on my cheek. I nodded. “I was daydreaming.” I folded the cloth and brushed it across the top of the picture frame. “What about?” he asked. I ran the cloth down the edge and along the bottom, but didn’t say a word – just shrugged. “Forget it,” he whispered to me. “It won’t do any good.” And he turned away before I could say a word. I listened to him putting on his coat, fastening up his shoes and looking for his gloves. I rubbed the cloth across the glass over and over, up and down and round and round in circles. “I’m going to look for firewood,” I heard him tell my mother. I waited for the door to close. Then I turned round and smiled at her. “I’ll go and help him,” I said. There was only one place my father could be heading, the only place to find dry wood at this time of year, and so I set off out of the house, round the back and across a field towards a small, dense copse of trees, following a dot of light from his lamp as it swung in and out of view. The cold air burned in my lungs, and my feet and ankles buckled and turned on the frozen ground as I strode on and on. But as he reached the copse, I was right behind him, and I stretched a hand through the darkness and rested it on his shoulder. “Father,” I said. He jumped and turned. “Yoora, what are you doing?” The lamplight flickered up on to his face, and for a second I stepped back from this ghostly, other-worldly thing staring at me. “I… came to help you.” He stared at me, his breathing heavy, his face fixed. “Hold this,” he said, passing me the lamp. I followed close behind him, waving the light over the ground as he picked up twigs and sticks. Waiting for the right moment. He stretched up high, his hand pulling tight on a branch to bring it down, the lamplight flooding his face. Now, I thought. “Was it really real, Father, that place in my dream?” He stopped. His whole body stiffened and his face filled with anger as he stared at me. Then he turned away again, yanking at the branch. “Is that why you followed me down here? To ask me that?” “No,” I lied. The branch came away in his hands and he strode towards me, towering over me. “I told you to forget it. There’s nothing to tell. It was a dream.” He turned away. I shook my head, following him. “That’s not right. There’s something you’re not telling me…” He spun round, his face in mine, his finger jabbing at me. “I told you, child, to leave it.” For a second I crumbled, frightened of him. Then I took a breath and I looked up. “I hate it when you call me child,” I spat. “You behave like one.” “You treat me like one. Why don’t you trust me and tell me the truth? Tell me whatever it is you’re hiding from me! I’m old enough to know!” His lips were thin as he stared at me, his chest heaving up and down as he breathed. “You wouldn’t believe me,” he hissed. I didn’t move, I didn’t argue, I didn’t say a word. I just waited, watching as his face relaxed and his shoulders dropped, as his head lowered and his eyes closed. “All right,” he whispered, lifting his head to look at me. “But you have to promise me you won’t repeat a word. Not to anyone. And that you’ll listen, really listen, to what I have to say.” I nodded. “I promise,” I breathed, and my skin prickled and my lungs felt hot and my palms were sweaty with excitement and anticipation. “Your dream,” he whispered with a sigh, “that place you saw in your head, it is real, it does exist.” I stared at him open-mouthed. “It’s Pyongyang, isn’t it? I think, Father, I think, you know, if I work really hard, that maybe He would let me go there, don’t you? If I try really hard? If we all do, He’ll let us go together. Today was a mistake, I was wrong, I shouldn’t have been daydreaming. But…” He lifted a finger to my mouth to silence me. “Listen,” he said. “If you want me to tell you, then for a minute just listen.” I nodded again. “It does exist, and it is just as you saw it. It has enough food for everyone, and medicine if you get ill. It has houses and apartments with bathrooms where you wash and go to the toilet. It has heating where you flick a switch and the room gets warmer.” He lowered his voice further. “And it has shops where you can buy things.” I stared at him, and suddenly everything felt very serious. “Clothes. And music, all different sorts. And they have televisions with programmes and channels you can choose. And books with stories, or about different countries and their leaders, who are voted for.” “We have a leader that we vote for too,” I whispered. He nodded. “But in other countries,” he said slowly and carefully, “there is more than one name on the slip. They have a choice.” His eyes bored into mine. “One day I’ll take you there. I hope you can live there. Have a future there. Be happy… but…” His voice drifted off and I watched as he lifted up the lamp and scanned the darkness around us, as he wiped his hand across his face and took a step towards me. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Yoora?” I nodded, although I wasn’t sure. I thought I did, but I didn’t know if I wanted to hear this, didn’t understand how anywhere like that could exist. Didn’t know whether to believe him. Or to trust him. He sighed, moving closer to me, looking at me so intently. “What do you think to things here, Yoora? Our country? What do you think to our Dear Leader?” I felt my body stiffen and my back straighten. “You think he’s fair? Looks after us?” “Of course,” I replied without thinking. “You think we should feel this hungry? Or this cold?” “Why are you asking me that? We’ve got everything we need here. He provides everything. There’s nowhere any better than here, He tells us that… He tells us…” My blank eyes stared into Father’s and I quoted lines I’d known for ever: “We grow up in the land of freedom All the little comrades march in rows Singing in this paradise of peace Tell me, of what can the world envy us?” I focused back on him. “Freedom?” he asked. “Paradise? You think so? Really, Yoora? After what I’ve just told you? After seeing that place in your dream?” He shook his head. “Open your eyes, look around you. If this is truly how you imagine freedom and paradise, then you have no imagination.” His voice was alive with passion and anger. “Are you hungry, Yoora? He’s not, our Dear Leader. He eats Chinese dolphins and French poodles, caviar and sea urchins.” My mouth fell open at the hatred I could hear in his voice. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I just stood there, hearing words coming from Father’s mouth that I never thought he would say. I could believe that place was real. I could believe it was in North Korea. I could believe it was somewhere only the most hardworking and loyal citizens were allowed to go. But I could not believe any more than that. Father’s words about the city had made me question him, but these… these made me worry about his sanity. “Are you cold?” Father continued. “He’s not. He lives in his palace with fires in every room and people to make them for him. Look how thin you are. Think of what he looks like. Has he ever missed a meal? Eaten only corn for a whole week? Gone to bed hungry? No. Is that how it should be? Is that right? Should he live like that while his people are starving?” My hands flew over my mouth then over my ears. I strode away and then back. I couldn’t believe he dared even think the words coming out of his mouth. I didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want those thoughts and words in my head, corrupting me with reactionary lies, challenging my faith in my country, our Fatherland. What he was saying was a crime against the state, an insult to the authority of the leadership that he could be arrested for. That it was my duty to report him for. That I could be arrested for if I didn’t. “I’ve wanted to share this with you for so long, what I think, really I have. For years your grandfather’s been telling your mother that you’re old enough to understand and to know not to say anything. But how could I? You had to believe it all, as if it was all true, every word. If you repeated anything I told you at school, we could all have been killed, the whole family, you too.” I put my hands over my ears again. “No,” I hissed. “No, I don’t want to hear it. Don’t say it. Don’t. Don’t.” He pulled my hands away. “Think of that place from your dream, think how different it was from here. It’s real, Yoora, it’s real.” I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see him, but still he had hold of my wrists and I couldn’t stop his words. So I sang, I recited, over and over – “Our future and hope depend on you The People’s fate depends on you Comrade Kim Jong Il! We are unable to survive without you!” “Yoora, stop it! Listen to me!” Father hissed. I kept on chanting, but still I could hear his lies. “There are places better than this in the world – people aren’t starving everywhere, people are happier. Feel that ache of hunger in your stomach, and the cold pulling at your face, and remember the last time you saw Kim Jong Il on television, a big, fat, round man, with clothes that look new, and a warm furry hat on his head.” He put a hand gently over my mouth, and I stopped singing. “You are my daughter, and I can feel the bones in your arms and legs. I can count your ribs, reach my hands round your waist. But I have no more food to give you. In the mornings while you sleep, I stare at your pale skin and your blue lips, and I rest my hand on your face and feel the cold of it, but I don’t have enough fuel to keep you warm. And I can’t get you a new coat or an extra blanket, or even a pair of socks with no holes. And it makes me want to cry. And it’s all because of that man.” I stared at Father. At his eyes glistening as they filled with tears, at the love I could see in his face as moonlight filtered through the trees and dappled his skin. So deluded. “No,” I said, taking his hand away from my mouth and wriggling from his grip. “You’re wrong. It’s because of you. If you worked harder, were a better citizen, then He’d provide us with more food and vouchers to exchange for clothes. It’s not His fault the floods came and washed away so many crops.” I turned and marched towards home, the lamp swinging in my hand. “What floods?” Father demanded, following me out of the trees. “The floods in other parts of the country. And He told us about the American capitalists and the Japanese imperialists, how it’s their fault too that we’re hungry and cold and tired. All we need to do is what He tells us – eat two meals a day instead of three; work harder, longer hours; be better citizens.” “What do you know about the Americans or Japanese apart from the lies you’ve been told at school? Do as He says, do as He tells you, believe what He speaks – it’s all you’ve ever lived by. It’s not your fault. But I’m trying to tell you it’s not right, it’s not true.” I stopped again and turned to him. “If that place is real, then how did it get in my head?” He stared at me for too long. Then, without a word, he shook his head. “I should report you,” I hissed, and I stormed away from him and didn’t look back. (#ulink_462e7ede-6ccb-55cb-82fb-fd3af292c907) I heard him come into the room that night as I lay under my blankets, but I didn’t turn round to say goodnight. My eyes were closed as I listened to him climb into his bed and pull the covers up around him, but sleep was far from me. I was tired and my head ached, but just as Kim Jong Il’s voice echoed round our house unbidden, so did my father’s in my head. There was no turning it off, no turning it down and no ignoring it. My body trembled with cold, my stomach grumbled with hunger, and darkness swirled and moved around me, dancing in front of my eyes. And over the background of Father’s shocking words, my own came again and again – How could he even think that of our Dear Leader? How could he question Him? And the loudest – I should report him. I remembered, back at school, all the songs and poems, teachings and rhymes I had learnt by heart from nursery through to my last year, things that were unrecognisable to me as anything but truth: unquestionable and sacred. “ Loyalty and devotion are the supreme qualities of a revolutionary.” “ We have nothing to envy in this world.” But what about Father’s loyalty and devotion? And why would anyone question what we lived by? Why would anyone not believe? But Father didn’t. I should report him, I thought again. He should be taken away for re-education, to learn again how good our Dear Leader is, how to follow Him, to do what is right by Him. And I remembered all the stories too, that we had been taught about our Dear Leader; how when He was born a bright star appeared in the sky, and a double rainbow, and a swallow flew down from heaven declaring the birth of a general who would rule all the world; that His mere presence could make flowers bloom and snow melt; that when His rule of our nation began it caused trees to grow and a rare albino sea cucumber to be caught. How can Father not believe those stories? I thought. For a second, just a second, my head was clear and I stopped. I told myself the stories again, but this time I really listened and really heard the words, better than I had ever done before, and whether because of the stories or Father’s words or the images from my dream, I allowed the smallest grain of something to settle in my head. Not of doubt, or disbelief. No. It was more like curiosity, or a desire to understand, a continuation of something that had begun a year earlier, when I met Sook. That, for me and for my family, was the beginning of the end. (#ulink_a0ff6873-4d80-541f-873c-2b841214e95a) One year earlier Winters were long and cold, came fast and left slow. Every year school stopped for four months from November until the beginning of spring, yet still our days were filled, with homework – books about the childhood of our Dear Leader to learn by heart, quotas of paper or of metal to collect for recycling – or jobs for my parents, searching for food to bulk out our rations. There was little time to do anything else, and little else to do. The year before my dream, which we called Juche 97 – ninety-seven years since the birth of our Great Leader, Kim Il Sung – was the harshest winter even my grandfather could remember. We struggled through every day of it, waiting for spring to come while we watched helplessly as the cold made victims not only of our crops, but also of our neighbours. Too many times we dug into the frozen soil to bury our dead. It was drawing into December and I stepped from my bed with feeble sunlight straining through the ice on the inside of the windows behind me, the cold clawing at me, icy and damp and unwelcoming. I pulled long socks up my legs, a jumper over my head, watching Father rushing to relight the fire, his body shaking through his layers of clothing. We were the first up, my mother and grandparents waiting for some warmth to slide across our two rooms before their strained faces emerged from their blankets and duvets. A little while later I stepped from the house into air so cold it hurt your skin like a million needles and made your eyes stream, and I longed for spring and the summer following, the warmth of sunlight on my face, green shoots in the ground promising food, coloured petals opening into a smile. I walked across the village towards the public toilets in near silence, a metal bucket swinging in one hand, an old spade and a pick in the other, listening to the crunch of stones under my feet, the breeze rustling at bare tree branches and my breath heavy in my ears. No birdsong – it was too cold – and no cars roaring or buses rumbling. I loved the quiet, the calm and the stillness; no awkwardness to it, just spacious and free; and I loved the countryside, even in winter with its covering of frost over empty fields of mud, rows of houses with wisps of smoke from their chimneys, leading off into the sky and over the tops of trees. It was rough and it was basic, but it was home and it was beautiful. It was Monday, my usual day for collecting night soil, a time I liked because I knew no one else would be up yet. But that day, as I turned the corner, someone else was already standing there, his legs stretched over the ditch, his head bent low, his hands scrabbling at chunks of frozen faeces. I stared at him, not believing quite how tall he was, or how filled out his face was, or how developed his muscles looked, how bright his skin. Or, as he glanced up at me and smiled, how friendly, how content and at ease he seemed to be. Most of us children of whatever age – no, all of us – were slender verging on skinny, were short to the point of being stunted, had skin that was dry and hair that was brittle, nails broken, muscles thin. He stood upright, and I looked away from him quickly, not wanting him to know I was watching. “Hello,” he said, inclining his head. I gave a courteous smile and a slow nod back, but didn’t look up to meet his eyes. I moved to the ditch closest to me, trying to think who he was. I didn’t recognise him, didn’t know him from school, couldn’t place him in the village, what house he lived in or who his parents were. I couldn’t understand how he looked so healthy, where he could be getting food from. He must be an excellent citizen, I thought. And his family too. I rested my bucket nearby, my shovel next to it, and lifted my pick, swinging it in my hands, crashing it down. “I’ve never done this before,” he said. “We never had to.” I tried not to frown, didn’t understand why he wouldn’t have had to do this. “It doesn’t smell as bad when it’s frozen,” I offered, “but it takes longer.” We continued in silence, and occasionally I risked a glance upwards, stopping to catch my breath, rubbing my aching back, watching his arms. With those muscles, they should’ve been so much more capable than mine, but they seemed surprisingly weak. My eyes drifted across the village and I noticed a woman watching me – someone else I didn’t recognise. As I struggled to lift the pick above my head and bring it down into the ditches of frozen excrement, her eyes never strayed from me. And it wasn’t until I’d finished, when I’d thrown the last lump into the bucket, bringing the level to the top, that she unfolded her arms and walked away. First this strange boy, I thought, and now a peculiar woman. “Can I walk with you?” the boy asked. “I’m not sure where to go.” I stared at him. A simple request. A few words. But it felt like more. I nodded my reply, though, and we struggled down the path, alongside the fields and away towards the buildings, and I watched his feet walking, his fingers stretching round the handle of the bucket, and I listened to his laboured breathing next to me. I was an innocent fifteen, had never had a boyfriend, never kissed, never held hands, or even thought that way about anyone. I didn’t know about sex, or how babies were made. We had no dating culture, just marriages, arranged usually through parents. Our Dear Leader gave special instruction that men should marry at thirty, women at twenty-eight, and children should be had only in marriage. But as I walked with this unknown boy, I felt the possibility of something – something I didn’t understand. “Tell me,” he said, his voice warm in the cold air, “why do we have to do this?” My heart smiled at his naivety. “They use it as fertiliser for the crops,” I replied, my own voice quiet and trembling with nerves. “Every family provides a bucketful each week, then it’s defrosted and spread on the fields. But we don’t have any toilets at home.” I shrugged, took a breath, gathered my thoughts and glanced again at his face. “We used to be given a chit in exchange. Then when we handed the chit over, we’d be given food. But that doesn’t happen any more.” “Why?” I paused a moment. I’d never thought why. “I don’t think there is much,” I replied. “Food, that is.” But the second the words were out, I regretted them. What would he think I was saying about our Dear Leader? That He couldn’t provide for us, the Father of our Nation? I hadn’t intended that meaning, but I didn’t know who this person was; he could be a spy, reporting back those not faithful, who would then be arrested and disappear. All for an innocent comment misconstrued. “Because of the floods and the cold weather,” I said. “And the bastard Americans,” I added for good measure. He nodded. I wanted to ask him where he’d come from. Why he was here. What life was like outside the village. Who his parents were. What they did. If he knew that woman who’d been watching me. But I didn’t dare. I struggled along with my bucket and spade and pick, my fingers stiff from the cold and the metal handle of the bucket burning my skin. Every now and then I sensed the boy’s head turn and his eyes rest upon me. We reached the building without another word and it was strange, not because it felt awkward, but the opposite; because the silence between us didn’t feel empty, it felt comfortable and natural, like there was no need to speak. Our buckets were emptied when we arrived, our chits, despite them being unnecessary, were given and together we wandered out. “My name’s Sook,” he said, tilting his head towards me. “Yoora,” I replied. He smiled, and I watched his eyes flit over me. “You look hungry.” I didn’t reply. Weren’t we all? “Here,” he said and pulled his hand from deep inside a trouser pocket. My eyes struggled against the cold, trying to focus, frowning at a bun sitting in his palm. I shook my head. Nobody, nobody, gave food away for free. “I can’t take that,” I said. “Please,” he whispered. “But… where did you get it? The… the markets are miles away and you’d need a permit to go… and…” “My mother bakes them. Then sells them.” “But I don’t have any money.” I knew how valuable it was, was sure she’d miss even one. “Just take it,” he said. I reached out my hand, my fingers long, stretching, daring, and I didn’t care who his mother was or where she got the ingredients from or whether this was going to get me into trouble or not. I just saw food, and I just wanted to eat. Hunger does strange things to a person, and I had been hungry for a long time. I held the bun in my fingers, turned away from Sook and lifted it to my mouth and nose, closed my eyes and smelt it, stretched out my tongue and touched the crust, gently. My mouth watered and slowly, slowly I sank my teeth into it. It was so good. “I have to go,” I heard him say. “My mother will be expecting me.” I turned to him, not chewing, just holding the piece of bun in my mouth, enjoying it for as long as possible. “I live up there.” He pointed to the biggest house in the village, with far more rooms than the two we had. I knew the house: it used to have an orchard in the back before the village kids destroyed it looking for apples, stripping off the fruit and the leaves and the bark and everything. It had been empty since the last family were taken away for treachery. “We moved in yesterday,” he said. He paused a second and I watched him look left and right and back to me. “Meet me sometime,” he whispered. My eyes shot to him. “After the sun’s gone down.” I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I simply stared at him, not believing what he’d said. But I caught movement behind him and I saw her, the woman from earlier. She was marching towards us, her black hair scraped away from her face, her hooded eyes piercing. I didn’t stop to reply, or wait to see who she was, or what she wanted. Instead I muttered an apology, spun round and walked away. I headed home thinking of my family: my mother and father who would be going to work, both thin and tired, hardworking despite the hunger in their bellies that was never sated. I thought of my grandparents: at home all day, too old, too weak to work, their skin stretched like old leather across their bones, their eyes hollow with sadness and disappointment, my grand­father’s stomach growling with hunger like a beast inside slowly dying. I should share this bun with them, I thought, staring at it in my hand. But how can I explain where it came from? What will they think? I took a guilty bite, and another, and before I even realised, there was too little for me to take home. So I finished it, and it was wonderful: the anticipation as I lifted it to my mouth, my senses screaming as I sank my teeth into it, that wonderful thick feeling as it slid down my throat. I missed proper food so much, couldn’t remember what a full stomach felt like, or what it was like to not be hungry. When I neared the house I could hear voices, low and mumbling, lifting and dropping again, and I slowed my pace, trying to make out what they were saying as they spoke over each other. I stepped closer, resting my hand on the door. The wood creaked. The voices stopped, and I stood for a moment, waiting for someone to speak again. But nothing came. I took a breath, steadied my face and stepped into the house. The tension was palpable; my mother standing next to a cupboard, pushing the drawer shut as she watched me, my father at the fireplace, my grandparents seated at the table. I felt their eyes, all of them, upon me, all with the question behind them – What did she hear? But the guilt I was trying to hide was from eating the bun all by myself, not from overhearing their conversation. Yet I knew for the first time, as I stood watching them, that something, some secret, was being shared in my house, only it was not being shared with me. It scared me. “I’ve met somebody new in the village,” I said, hoping for the tension to ease. “He lives up in the big house.” I looked around, expecting curious glances and inquisitive faces, but instead saw my father fidget, heard my grandfather’s intake of breath, saw their eyes shoot to each other, and my mother’s almost imperceptible shake of her head. “Stay away from him,” hissed my grandmother, her eyes narrowing at me as if they could see the smile he’d brought to my face earlier. “We don’t have any business with them. Remember your place, Yoora.” Uncomfortable, I looked away, and saw my grand­father’s eyes drop. “His mother’s the new Inminbanjang,” he whispered. “What?” I asked, staring at him. But my mother was marching towards him, wagging her finger in his face. “No,” she whispered. “She doesn’t need to know. She’s only fifteen.” “Know what?” I whispered back. Over her shoulder my grandfather was shaking his head, and I could hear his mutterings. “Fifteen. She’s nearly a woman. She leaves school this year. She’s old enough to know the truth, and to be trusted. She should know.” Calmly he stood up, tucking the chair under the table and striding from the house. Nobody stopped him. Nobody said a word. But even among all this confusion, the guilt I felt over the bun didn’t go away. At least not until that evening, when stomach-ache hit me, my body not used to the richness I’d given it, and I passed my share of thin noodle soup to my grandparents. My guilt then, to some degree, was assuaged. I lay on my bed mat on that long winter night, watching the flames of the fire die, the embers fade and turn to black, and I felt the gradual leaking of cold from around the window frame and under the bottom of the door, felt it like ice forming across my face and cracking my lips, and I thought of Sook. I thought about meeting him, being with him, his face, his smile, his company. He had given me a spark of light in my life of dark. Yet his mother was the new Inminbanjang, and I did know what that meant, even though I had pretended not to, had suspected it as soon as Sook told me where he lived. She was the new head of our local neighbourhood group – a spy for our government. Every few weeks she would have to report to an agent from the Ministry of Public Security. Inform on people who hadn’t worked hard enough, or had said something against our Dear Leader, or failed to wear the badge with His face on over their hearts, or let dust gather on His picture. An endless list. Other people would work for her too, all reporting back to her, even if only gossip; they had to say something. Some of those reported would be sent to re-education lessons, some to prison, some executed in the fields. I had never known anyone accused to then be found innocent. It hung over us as we tried to live, shaping everything said and everything done, not because of guilt – we had none, we were good citizens, working hard, doing our duty – but because of the power these people held. Even the most patriotic, the most innocent and best behaved and hardest working could be accused and found guilty of anything, if someone wanted it enough. “Is anyone incorruptible?” my grandfather used to say to me as a warning. “If they’re hungry enough, or sad enough? Or need money to try to buy medicine?” Or if they want to keep someone away from their son? I wondered. I didn’t think for one moment, though, that the idea of a government spy was the truth my mother was trying to hide from me. There was something more going on in my home that I was not deemed old enough, or sensible enough, or trustworthy enough to be allowed to know. But as I lay there in the cold, my thoughts again strayed back to Sook, and as my eyes grew heavy with the image of him, a warmth spread through me, sending me to sleep with a smile on my face for the first time I could remember. Yet not for one moment did I think I was being naive. (#ulink_1039580b-7e4b-58a6-b745-928156b614a6) As I walked alongside the fields the next day, my feet stumbling across the frozen earth, heading for the trees on higher ground to look for firewood, I saw a boy moving towards me, his frame slightly bigger than most, his walk slightly faster, his arms swinging, his legs marching. So obvious he wasn’t like the rest of us. Not as hungry, or as weak, or as worn down by tiredness. My stomach lurched and I could feel the heat rise in my cheeks and my mouth go dry. I looked up to him, and down again, away to the distance, and back to him just as he looked at me. Our paces slowed as we approached, staring at each other. And we stopped. “Tonight?” I whispered. “I thought you didn’t…” I shrugged. “All right.” He nodded. “After dark. When everyone’s asleep?” I stared at him, so nervous, so excited. “Where? On the corner near your house?” “No,” I replied. He nodded. “No, you’re right. At the end of the path then, where it splits in two. Next to the tree?” I knew where he meant; it was quiet and secluded, away from any houses. I agreed before I could change my mind, and I walked away with a smile in my eyes. I wanted to be with him, spend time with him, find out about him. I knew how dangerous it was, but I didn’t listen to that voice in my head questioning why I was doing it, when I’d already turned him down, when it could cause so much trouble if anyone found out, when we could not possibly have any future, the two of us, in this society. My mother asked me if I was ill that evening, my grandmother said I was quiet, my father mentioned that I looked preoccupied. After each I replied I was fine, a bit tired, a little hungry. My grandfather, though, I caught watching me every now and then – across the table as we ate our maize, as I looked back from watching the sun setting through the window, or when I was pulling out the bed mats and unfolding the blankets. But he didn’t say a word. Darkness came early in wintertime, and the nights were long and cold. We would be sleeping by seven thirty, keeping warm under blankets and duvets rather than using firewood and fuel so precious to us. I waited that first night, and waited, for what felt like hours, lying under my covers, trying to stay awake while tiredness consumed me and sleep pulled at my eyelids. I listened to Father’s breathing turn slow, turn heavy, turn to snores, and I whispered Mother’s name, watching her shadow in the darkness to see if she turned towards me, or lifted her head, or muttered a reply. But she didn’t. They were asleep. Yet I lay there still, a bit longer, waiting for something, I didn’t know what. Maybe for my nerves to subside, or to talk myself out of it, for my indecision to go, or to find the courage to pull away those blankets and step out into the cold. This wasn’t the kind of thing I did. I was a good girl. I worked hard at school and on the fields, I obeyed my parents, I respected them. I had no secrets and told no lies. I was straightforward and honest. My life was uncomplicated. But this? This thing presenting itself to me, this made my chest hot and my breath short and my skin prickle. This made me feel excited, alive. I stretched my legs out from the warmth of the blankets and into the cold air, and I rolled my body out on to the floor without making a sound. Quickly and quietly I pulled on my clothes, and with my eyes peeled, trying to make sense of the gloom in front of me, I bulked the blankets up on the bed, hoping that if Mother or Father should wake, they’d presume it was me. The wind bit at me as I walked to meet him, the skin on my face tightening and the air freezing inside my lungs. There was no electricity in the village for lights, and that night only a sliver of moon lit the sky, jumping for ever in and out of clouds, plunging me one moment into blackness complete and engulfing, the next allowing me the tiniest piece of glistening light to try and find my way. And so I moved carefully, shuffling at first, then stepping, then striding; walking by memory with the crunching of gravel or the softness of mud under my feet, the touch to my fingers of a farm building made of wood to my right, a bush with nothing but spiky branches to my left. I approached with footfalls silent on grass, and my breathing slow and controlled and even. When I could sense he was there I stopped, closed my eyes, hearing the whistle of his breath and the steady scratching of one nervous fingernail on another. I could turn round and go. Head back home and he would never know, I thought. He would never say anything and it would be forgotten. My life would carry on steady and simple. And boring. I opened my eyes and took those final steps towards him. “Sook,” I whispered, and I heard his breathing change and could imagine a smile reaching across his face. “Yoora,” he replied. For a moment we just stood, and I didn’t know what to say or do, and I didn’t know what I expected him to say or do either. My clothes were thin and the air was freezing and my knees and legs shook and my teeth chattered, though I was certain it wasn’t just because of the cold. “Here,” he whispered, and I felt him wrap a blanket round me. “W… what about you?” I stammered. “My clothes are warmer,” he replied, and as he stood in front of me, pulling the blanket round my body and up under my chin, I could feel the warmth coming from him, and I could smell him close to me and on the blanket. I looked up at his face as the moon came out from behind a cloud again, catching its light flitting across his skin and showing the outline of his smile. My stomach tipped. I was so close to him, and his hands as they pulled the blanket were nearly touching me. My life was so routine, so predictable and uneventful and monotonous. Excitement was our Dear Leader’s birthday, or the birthday of His father before Him, our Eternal President, Kim Il Sung. When we were allowed a day off school or work to lay a red flower at the feet of their statues and sing their praises. Dread was a test at school, checking you could recite the details of our Eternal President’s life, where He was born, studied, the battles He fought in, the never-ending list of His achievements. And those of our Dear Leader. Knowing the punishment was at least the cane or a punch. Fear was everybody else. Watching you, forming opinions of you, lying about you with words that could kill. This? This was something else entirely. This was… exhilarating… thrilling. I felt awake. I felt alive. “Shall we walk?” he asked, and all I could do was nod my head. (#ulink_61364b8b-b682-5699-b76d-a14a6558193a) Together we strolled up the track that led away from the village, my mind racing for things to say as I pulled the blanket tighter around me, felt the roughness of it on my face. I was nervous, a little frightened, and next to me I could feel Sook glancing one way then another, up to the tops of the trees then down to his feet on the ground. “Are there bugs?” he asked. “Insects and little creatures like that? Or any animals?” I couldn’t help but smile at him. “Of course – it’s the countryside.” I heard him suck breath in. “Big ones?” “What?” I asked. “Like tigers and bears?” “Yeah.” “Yes,” I nodded. “They’ll be watching you now, then they’ll leap out and grab you and eat you up.” “Really?” His voice trembled. I paused, letting him believe, just for a moment. “No. Not really. Not here. Further north, yes.” “How do you know that?” I shrugged. “Everybody knows that. There are some here. Insects of course and a few animals and birds. Owls. Nothing that will hurt you. Lots that you can eat, if you can catch them.” “Snakes?” I laughed. “No snakes. I promise. You’re not from the countryside, are you?” “No.” I didn’t dare ask him any more, it felt rude and intrusive. He must be from a town. Or a city, I thought. I already knew the reasons why people were moved – those who had fallen foul of the authorities or committed some crime against the Fatherland, yet nothing bad enough for a prison sentence. That or they had connections that protected them, or they were well thought of. Before. We stopped walking and turned round, staring down at the groups of houses and fields that were our village, silver moonlight passing over them as the wind blew at the clouds. “My father’s disabled,” he whispered, as if this would answer the questions I didn’t dare ask. “We lived in the capital, Pyongyang. He had an accident at work. Lost half his leg. Then we moved.” I nodded. “I see,” I replied. But I didn’t. “He doesn’t leave the house now. Mother was really angry.” “Why? Was it somebody else’s fault?” “No.” He shook his head. “I mean, she was angry that we had to move. But… but… she didn’t show it, didn’t say anything; she couldn’t: she knew we had to do what we were told.” I turned my head to him and stared at his silhouette in the moonlight, surprised how open he was being. “I’m sorry, Sook,” I said, and his name felt strange in my mouth, “but I don’t think I understand.” He sighed long and heavy and I waited until finally he turned his face to me. “It was Pyongyang,” he said. “I don’t… I still don’t…” He leant in closer. “There are no disabled people in Pyongyang. It’s not allowed,” he whispered. “Oh,” I replied, putting the pieces together in my head. “I didn’t know that.” “It’s not written anywhere. Nobody says it.” He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “Business people go there, and tourists, foreigners. It doesn’t present a good image, having disabled people or handicapped people in the streets.” His voice was so low I could barely make out his words. “Or the old. They move away too. Sent somewhere foreigners aren’t allowed to go. Pyongyang is a place for the young and the pretty, for successful people and the trustworthy. People who don’t ask questions.” And he stared at me, right into me, with such intensity. “I didn’t just say that. You wouldn’t… you wouldn’t…?” And I knew so well what he was asking for. Reassurance that I wouldn’t repeat what he’d said, or report him, because some might think what he’d said was scandalous, punishable, reactionary. But to me it wasn’t. It made perfect sense. Pyongyang was the face our nation showed to the world, and of course anyone would want that to look as good as possible. Maybe it was surprising to hear that put into words, but not shocking. But still, I thought to myself, he must trust me to say it out loud. Or trusts that I wouldn’t dare speak out against the son of the Inminbanjang . “I… I… won’t say anything,” I replied. And there it was. Something we shared. That tied us together. I wished I could tell him something in return, a secret or a suspicion, something dangerous or daring, that meant I had given and trusted, as he had; but I wasn’t brave enough, and I didn’t have anything to share anyway. Not then at least. We walked a little more, that first meeting, and spoke a little more, but we soon headed home, beaten by the cold and my lack of courage. I wanted to be brave and bold, to not care if we were caught or our parents found out, but the consequences frightened me, shouting a warning at me from the back of my mind – his mother is the Inminbanjang! But it was only our first meeting, and I sneaked back into the house while everyone slept on oblivious, and I climbed back into bed, peeling away my layers of clothes under the blankets and looking forward so much to the next time I saw Sook. We met more, and I thought less of being caught and of what might happen. Together, on our evenings, we would stroll up past fields and away from the village, barely able to see each other except for when the moon was out, but it never mattered – we were there for each other’s company. We talked about everything and nothing, shared thoughts and wonderings and sometimes opinions. I asked him if he was proud of his mother when she reported the first reactionary citizen in the village, an old man, recently widowed, who could no longer work and had no family to support him. Someone had overheard him saying that our Dear Leader wasn’t providing enough food for His people. He was executed two days later. Of course, she’d done well and the old man deserved it; it’s not our place to complain or to judge His leadership. But the delight in her eyes as the man was taken away woke me with nightmares for weeks, imagining it was me she was reporting, with some made-up charge to have me taken away after she found out about me and her son. But even as time passed and Sook and I spoke more and more, we never talked about or queried or commented on whatever it was we had together, growing and deepening. Even though whatever we had didn’t have a future. Not if either of us wanted a future that was safe. (#ulink_28bd45de-3dcd-5d0b-8b62-27ae583997a1) Time passed. Winter passed. Spring drew away and summer arrived with long days and short nights. We left school, both of us, and while Sook was allowed an hour’s walk to the nearest town every day to work in an office, I was given a job on the land. And as summer came, we met later, waiting longer for the dark to come and for the house to be sleeping. That night, the one I remember so well, the air was warm and humid, close around us as we walked. We pointed out things to each other that sparkled in the moonlight, watched it dance on our faces, still with not a touch, or a kiss, or a hold of a hand. We lay next to each other on the grass, and the sky began to lighten as the sun came back round, and the first glimpses of orange and red reached up from behind the trees. Eventually, in our sleepy way and with no regard to the consequences, we strolled back towards the village with dawn at our back and the song of birds as they woke, and we said a goodbye to each other that lingered perhaps a little too long. He had become my best friend. With him, I felt wanted and needed. I felt awake and alive. I felt invincible. I had become careless. I stepped through the door and straight into the glare of my grandmother’s eyes staring at me from her bed mat. I paused, my palm still resting on the handle behind me, watching as she shook her head, waiting for her to shout at me, or call my mother from the other room, or throw something at me, or jump up and hit me. She lifted a finger and beckoned me towards her, and I tiptoed across with my insides on fire. I crouched down, sure she’d be able to hear my heart trying to thump out of my body. “Sook?” she questioned. I didn’t say a word, but I felt my face flush and my eyes widen before I could stop them. “You stupid child,” she hissed. My jaw clenched and I lowered my eyes. “What do you think his mother would say? What do you think she’d do? You think she’d approve? Wish you luck and welcome you into the family?” I didn’t reply. “Or do you think she’d be disappointed and angry that her precious son would want to spend time with someone like you? And want to get back at you, at us?” Reluctantly, I nodded. “Of course she would, a woman like that. She’d destroy you. And it’s not just your life you’re putting in danger – you know that, don’t you? It’s all our lives. Mine, your grandfather’s, your mother and father’s. The more, the better for her. Even if we’ve done nothing wrong, she’ll think of something, make something up, and she’ll be rewarded for it. For rooting out reactionary elements or destroying the bad blood.” I didn’t move. “Do you understand how selfish you’re being?” she spat, and even in the half-light I could see the ferocity in her eyes and feel it eating into me. I wanted to cry. “She’ll find out, if you keep seeing him, if she hasn’t already.” “But we’re not doing anything wrong. We’re not reactionary .” She sighed, shaking her head. “Don’t you listen? It doesn’t matter. But anyway, of course you are – you’re seeing her son. In secret. And she’s the Inminbanjang. She’s only got to look at us and we could be taken away. What class are we, Yoora? Have you thought of that? We’re at the bottom, we’re the hostile class – we’re beulsun – tainted blood. Everyone already thinks of us as suspect; we’re watched by neighbours; parents tell their children to watch you at school. “Why do you think you’re working on the land, a clever girl like you? We’ll never be allowed better jobs, never be allowed to join the Workers’ Party, never be allowed any of their privileges. Never leave this village. We are nothing to them. Or to anyone. And nothing will ever change. Not for you or your children or your grandchildren. This is it. There is no way for us to move up in social class. It doesn’t happen. You’re born into it, you can’t marry out of it and you die in it.” “But Sook is—” “What? What do you think Sook is? As low as us?” She shook her head. “Not quite the core class, not the best, or they wouldn’t be in this village. But not far off. And there is no way that she, Min-Jee, will ever let you and Sook have a relationship.” “We could run away,” I breathed. She laughed at me then. “Wake up to yourself and don’t be so ridiculous. You need government permission to move, a permit to travel out of the village. Where would you live? How would you survive? No one’s going to give you a job. They wouldn’t be allowed to. If she finds out,” she lowered her voice again, “she’ll destroy us. You know how it works: the sin, the crime, travels in the blood for three generations. Anything you do, three generations will be punished for it. She will find out, Yoora, if you carry on seeing him. One day she will. That’s if he hasn’t told her already.” “He wouldn’t—” “Don’t be naive. You have to end it. For all our sakes.” And she turned away. I climbed back into bed, but sleep eluded me and I watched the sunlight grow brighter through the window and change my sleeping parents from vague silhouettes into real people, with worries marked on their skin in heavy lines and deep wrinkles. All the while my grandmother’s words played over and over in my head and I thought about our family, how small it was, how we were beulsun, though no one had told me of it before. I wondered why. I wondered why no relatives were ever talked about, and no aunts or uncles, or other grandparents or cousins, ever visited. I wanted to know, I wanted to understand. For the next few days I skulked around, avoiding Grandmother’s eye, avoiding Sook, putting off telling him the decision she was forcing me to take. The truth, the honest, painful, selfish truth, was that I didn’t want to stop seeing him. By that time, silently I loved him and, I believed, he loved me. I missed those night-times that were a world away from my daytimes. I saw him again a week later strolling towards me down the path with a spade in his hand and a smile edging his lips. “Tonight? Same time?” he breathed. I thought about telling him, thought about what I should do, but as I looked up and met his eye, as we watched each other for a second too long, I realised I couldn’t physically say the words. So I nodded. I didn’t care about the threat. I didn’t care about the danger. Because by then I trusted him to keep me safe. But, in a country where one person in five is a government informant, where, for a crime possibly not even committed, neighbour reports co-worker, pupil reports teacher and child reports friend, trust was a rare and reckless thing, a stupid and naive emotion. I knew that, but I didn’t think it applied to me. My stupidity, my naivety and my guilt followed me over miles. (#ulink_43fc1f2b-6d85-5398-9a5f-48b3d42299d7) Winter arrived, and still I had not broken off my friendship with Sook. Then finally the night came when I had my dream, my impossible dream, filled with images of a city of lights, a place unimaginable, unseen and unknown to me. And so too came the conversation with Father and all the worries I had for him. Was he a traitor? Because if he was, then I should report him. But then all my family would suffer. Or was he ill? Delusional? Nothing made sense any more. I felt tricked into having the dream. I felt soiled from the words Father had said. And I felt a traitor to my country for not reporting him. But more than anything I felt so very, very alone. I wished I could share it with someone. That night, a year after I first met Sook, when I could hear my father’s snores and my mother’s slow, steady breathing, when I knew Grandmother would be sleeping and I could creep past her, I pulled my clothes round me and slid from the house. The moon was the thinnest slip of a crescent, and the darkness of the countryside swallowed me as I moved through it. There was barely a sound, an eerie stillness, the trees half dead, motionless with no wind, the earth dry under my feet, the dust slipping behind me with every step. I saw his outline, saw him turn to me, smile, felt warmth in my chest, heard myself sigh. Then a sudden screech came from above us, and next to me Sook jumped, and I heard his intake of breath as he stifled a scream. City boy, I thought. “It was only an owl,” I whispered. I stopped, and the smile on my face slipped as I felt pressure on my hand and squeezing at my fingers. I looked down – Sook was holding my hand. I stared at our fingers, blurry, indistinguishable in the half-light, and I looked up at his face so close and felt my cheeks flush. Neither of us moved, or said a word, but so much passed between us as the moment stretched on: a conversation unspoken, an intensity in the air, an understanding somehow reached as it drew to an end. “Let’s walk,” he breathed. And we did, together, hand in hand, so close our shoulders brushed as we moved, so nervous that I didn’t dare move my fingers or acknowledge that we were touching. Something so simple and natural, but something I had never seen any couple do before. Not in public. It was exciting. Rebellious. “Are you hungry?” he whispered as we reached the village greenhouses. I nodded and reluctantly let go of his hand. We sat with our backs against the glass and our legs tucked under us for warmth. “Here,” he said, placing a bun in my hands. “Your mother’s baking?” He took another from his pocket for himself. “She won’t notice.” I struggled to believe that was true, not with so much hunger, with people who could offer good money for this bun in my hands, money that she could use to buy more ingredients, to bake more, to sell more. We couldn’t afford the ingredients even if we had the contacts to get them, and even if we had, we wouldn’t be allowed a permit to sell them in the markets. How would Min-Jee feel if she knew her son was giving them away? And worst of all, to someone beulsun like me? What would she say to him? What would she do to us? She wouldn’t care that I was starving and so was my family. She couldn’t, just as I had to not care that my neighbours too were starving, that the baby girl next door died from malnutrition, not enough milk from her mother to see her into her second month. I only ever heard her cry the night she was born. Too many people were starving for me to be able to care about any of them. Aid for them would have to form an infinite queue to stop them feeling hungry for just one night. One solitary act of kindness would make little difference. So without thinking of them, I tore a piece off the bun and placed it on my tongue, watching Sook do the same. “I can’t stay long tonight. My mother’s not well. I’m worried she’ll get up and notice I’m missing.” “All right,” I replied. “I understand.” We carried on eating, but said little. I was disappointed; I wanted to be with him, feel my hand in his again, see that smile on his face in the moonlight, have that excitement tipping my stomach. “You want to walk back that way with me? Past my house?” I hesitated. We had never gone that way before. He stood up and held out his hand to mine. For a second I stared at it, the long fingers, the short nails, the lines deep in his palm, and then I lifted my hand, placed it in his and felt myself pulled up from the ground. I smiled. We walked. And too soon we were approaching his house. He pointed to the different windows, explaining what each room was, knowing, I suppose, that I would never be allowed inside. There was a kitchen for cooking in, with a sink to wash things, and taps that water came from. A room each to sleep in, with beds that stayed out all day. Another with comfortable chairs to sit on and a television to watch. “No foreign channels though,” he joked. I told him about our two rooms for five of us; our one table and five hard chairs; our one radio with, of course, its one government channel to listen to; one bucket to wash in, brush teeth in, wash pots and prepare food in. No taps. No running water. We sat together around the back of his house, under a window pulled closed, the dead trees of the old orchard like crumbling gravestones before us, no use even for firewood. “The apartment we had in Pyongyang was better,” he said. “There was more food too. Better conditions, people were happier, the streets and buildings were clean and tidy.” He sighed. “There were big, tall buildings too. And underground trains, the deepest in the world, magnificent, with chandeliers in the stations and…” He was describing my dream and I couldn’t believe it. Father was right, at least about that, there was a place like it. But he was wrong about our Dear Leader. I knew that. He must’ve been. “And do the buildings stretch right up high?” I asked. “Some.” He nodded. “With lights in the windows that are orange or yellow or white. And there are loads of cars in the roads, one after another after another, all different shapes and sizes and colours.” My voice became louder and my words faster. “And bars where you can buy drinks, and loud music thumping out, and people dancing in clothes of all different colours and styles?” He stared at me. I closed my eyes and could see it again, just as if I was strolling down it in real life. “And there are restaurants with smells of food, and stalls that sell food already cooked that you can carry around and eat and… and… and my father says there’s enough food for everyone, and he says there’s medicine if you get ill, and he said that’s where I’ll live. That’s where my future is.” My excitement flooded out of me. The relief that I could share this with someone, with Sook, my best friend, the person who meant so much to me. Who I wanted to be with, stay with, make a life with. And I could do it, couldn’t I? Maybe? In that place? That place that must’ve been Pyongyang. And Father was right – about that. “No,” he said. I opened my eyes. “That’s not Pyongyang. Pyongyang is quiet; there’s government music through the loudspeakers, but nothing else. A couple of cars on the roads, but black ones mostly, police cars. And you know nobody wears clothes like that. What you’re talking about sounds like Chinese clothes, and they’re banned. Yes, there are restaurants, but not like that. And there are no flashing or coloured lights. That’s not Pyongyang.” (#ulink_fd5eb79c-cb13-5c3d-a150-201bd4323174) “But it must be,” I said. “It must be Pyongyang. There are signs for cinemas and shops and rooms to let in hotels. People, loads of people, all sorts of people, wandering around, smiling and chatting, some on phones that they carry, some with wires in their ears for music.” “Where did you see that? How do you know about it? It’s not Pyongyang. It’s not this country. It can’t be.” “But…” My face fell. “Your father told you about it? Said you were going there? Going to live there? But that would mean… that would mean… he’s thinking of leaving the country. He’s planning an escape. That would mean he’s a traitor, that he disrespects our Dear Leader. Yoora…” I shook my head. What had I done? What had I said? “No, no, no, he’s not. It was Pyongyang, it must’ve been. Maybe it was a part you weren’t near.” “Yoora, what you described is not Pyongyang. I lived there all my life until I came here. That place that you’re describing, however you know about it, is not in this country, it can’t possibly be. And if your father—” “He loves our Dear Leader. He bows to Him every day. He… he never says anything against Him… ever… he… he’s a good citizen, my father. He’s loyal… and devoted and… and…” We both fell silent, and I realised how loudly we’d been talking. I felt my eyes prickle and I was scared, wished I could take back what I’d said, wished my stupid mouth hadn’t emptied out all of that rubbish. But he was my friend, Sook, my best friend, and I could trust him not to say anything. Couldn’t I? I felt sick. “Yoora.” He lowered his voice, leaning close to me. “Tell me the truth. Tell me what’s going on. What’s your father planning? What’s he told you? Maybe it’s something you should report. You’d be rewarded.” I stared at him. I thought of what that reward might be. Food? A better job? Living in that city? I thought of my father, my mother, my grandparents. “Don’t do this to me,” I whispered. “Don’t make me choose.” He shuffled closer and rested his hand on top of mine, and his eyes, so deep, stared at me as if they were looking right into my soul. “You know, I wish we didn’t have to hide away, only meeting at night, an hour here and there. I wish we could have a future together…” I smiled at him and all thoughts of Father were gone. “I try not to wonder what will happen to us any more,” I replied. “You know, if this will all have to end, us meeting like this, because I don’t want to think that it has to. I want to believe in it and ignore that your family are a better class than mine, but… but really it can’t happen… not even friendship. It wouldn’t be allowed, Sook. I know that. So do you.” “But maybe,” he said, squeezing my hand, “maybe if you tell me what your father said, then it could change things for us. We could tell my mother, she could help you…” “What?” I stared at him, shaking my head. “No. That’s ridiculous,” I spat. “There’s nothing to tell anyway. And even if there was, your mother would never do anything to help me or my family. She’d just have an excuse to get rid of me.” “She wouldn’t do that.” I lifted a hand to dare to touch his cheek. “She would,” I whispered. And I knew she would. Honestly. Truthfully. And I knew that one day this would have to end. I just never wanted that day to arrive. “You should go in. Check on your mother. But please, Sook… please don’t say anything… not about my father… he’s not what you’re thinking… he’s just…” But I couldn’t find the words. I looked up to a lightening sky, morning approaching, and we motioned our silent goodbyes with no hint of a smile, but with the briefest touch of hands, and I turned away. I headed home feeling sad and scared and worried. The conversation playing over in my head, what I’d said, what I hadn’t meant to say, what he thought, what he might do. And then, through the silence of the village, I thought I heard something behind me and I stopped, listening, turning towards the noise. It came from Sook’s house. Voices strained and mingling together, or early morning birdsong? Was that Sook standing at the window, watching me? Should I wave? Or shadows playing tricks on me in the half-light? I turned and walked away. I didn’t know I would never be back. (#ulink_7a87af8e-c6da-5056-8e3b-f863a07d3af8) I woke to the same noises as always, and I peered out of the window at the same scene that greeted me every morning. As I ate my porridge, I glanced around at the faces of my family: my grandfather with his wonderful smile and his marvellous stories; my grandmother, quiet and drawn nowadays; my mother who worked so hard to feed us all; and my father, my dear father, who could take away my nightmares and make sense of my dreams. All their kindness for me. I remembered the warning words from Grandmother just a few months ago, and I replayed my conversation with Sook from the night before. Over and over I heard my voice echoing and shouting through my head, telling him secrets, betraying my father, my family. Words we could be arrested for. Words we could die for. I wanted to cry, wanted to tell them what I’d done and for them to make it all better again. They could do that, couldn’t they? Take me in their arms, sway me back and forth, whisper in my ear while they stroked my hair, tell me everything would be all right, really it would. And I would explain that I hadn’t meant to tell Sook, it just came out, and came out wrong. Because Father wasn’t planning an escape because that city was Pyongyang, and Sook must’ve been mistaken. But Sook had lived there for fifteen years, and he had sounded so certain. And why would he lie? I swallowed a spoonful of porridge, lifted my eyes back to my family and opened my mouth to speak. I felt sick again. “Are you all right, Yoora?” my father asked. “I feel a bit dizzy,” I whispered, bringing my shaking hands to my head, watching his eyes, full of concern, looking at me; his thoughts, his most secret thoughts that he’d shared with me that night in confidence, hanging between us, the secret I should’ve kept. Escape? I thought. Really, Father? Is that really what you’re planning? Is that really what you think of our Dear Leader? Escaping, or even plotting to escape, even thinking about it, was a crime against the state, against our Dear Leader. A crime punishable by prison or death. And not just for Father – badness runs in the blood for three generations, and so does the punishment. I had seen it before, maybe five years ago: a radio, broken away from its preset government station, tuned in to a Chinese one instead. No malice intended, no reactionary thoughts or plans, just curiosity about what else existed, and an appetite for music with guitars. But his intentions were irrelevant – his actions went against our country’s teachings. He was older than me, the boy who did it, but I remember standing close to him at school, hearing his feet pattering out a rhythm I didn’t recognise, the involuntary hum of a song in his throat. I wasn’t the only one who heard it, and I probably wasn’t the only one to report him. They arrived early one morning and the radio was found; that was all that was needed. I remembered his family – his mother and father, his uncle, his grandfather, his sister; seeing them thrown on to the back of a truck. I remembered the boy’s eyes staring down at the watching villagers, eyes full of fear and desperation and guilt and disappointment. I wondered if he still remembered the song. I wondered if he hated it now. “Get some fresh air,” Father said, his eyes looking up at the smoke from the fire that had settled in a layer under the ceiling. On trembling legs I stood and wandered to the door, stepping out into the biting cold, my body shivering as claws of ice reached round me. I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep, rasping breath. I exhaled long and slow, my shoulders sagging and my face relaxing, and I opened my eyes. And there it was. Staring at me with its beady black eyes and cocking its head to one side, like it was trying to tell me something. A crow. No more than a few metres away. He’ll be looking for food, I thought to myself. He’ll start digging through the earth with his beak. You won’t find worms there, I wanted to tell him. They’ll be too far down in winter. And the insects will be huddled together in dark places under rocks, or crevices behind loose pieces of bark, waiting for spring to come and wake them properly. “You’d make a good meal yourself,” I whispered. “My grandmother would strip the feathers from you and put you in a pot. And you’d taste good. And I could stick your feathers inside my clothes to keep warm.” But he just carried on staring – a black stain, a threat, an omen. He hopped sideways, stretching out his wings, the feathers glistening oily blue and green, and he flapped upwards, veering towards me and cawing, a raw, harsh, grating noise that stripped through the air and screamed in my ears. His wings were so close to me that I could hear their beating and feel the change in the air as they blotted and flickered out the light, my eyes squinting against the flashing, my arms raised to protect my face. I crouched down, tucking my face into my chest and stretching my arms over my head. For a moment I thought I felt his claws on my head, pulling at my hair, and I imagined him lifting off into the sky and taking me with him. And for a moment I didn’t feel threatened by him or scared of him. I felt something entirely different. Like an understanding, or a need, a sense of urgency. But as suddenly as he had arrived, he was leaving again, and I stood up, stared into the blue sky scattered with dark clouds, watched his black form and his flapping wings ease away from me, his voice cawing out all the while, like he was screaming at me. (#ulink_bdfbcdcd-c72e-5513-b0cc-277e097afe7d) I stepped back inside. “Did you see that?” I asked. But four sets of eyes met mine with blankness. I sat back down. “There was a crow.” I waited for some reaction, a question from Mother maybe, or an intake of breath from Grandmother. But nothing. And I realised the stares were blank because of the silence they had thrown themselves into as I came back into the house. They had wanted me out of the way. They had needed me out of the way. But what had they been talking about? I slurped the last few spoonfuls of thin porridge from the bowl, and still nobody said a word; the silence was as frosty as the air. Had they been arguing? Shouting at each other in hissed whispers? Maybe, I thought, they knew, somehow, that I’d told Sook about my dream, about what Father had said to me. Maybe they were too angry to speak to me. But, I reminded myself, Sook sneaks food to me, he meets me, he cares about me. He won’t say anything. And I can tell them that, when they start shouting at me. I can trust him. As I took my empty bowl to the bucket at the window where we washed the pots, I thought I heard something like a vague growl in the distance, and my eyes searched past the grime on the glass and away across the countryside and hills surrounding us. I turned my head to Grandfather and caught him staring at his wife, my grandmother. I looked to Mother and Father, neither moving, just listening. The sound grew louder. I leant closer to the window pane. “No,” I whispered, shaking my head, my skin prickling, my chest tightening and my head spinning. “There’s a car coming,” I muttered. “Not here?” Mother whispered. I turned to Father, his eyes filling with disappointment as he looked at me, his head shaking. “I’m sorry,” I mouthed to him, but he wasn’t looking at me any more, and he wasn’t listening. He was on his feet with Mother and my grandparents, staring through the window to the car that had now turned towards the village, clouds of exhaust fumes belching out behind it. “It can’t be coming here,” Mother whispered. I opened my mouth to speak, to explain what I had said to Sook, about my dream of the city with the lights and the food and the music, Father saying he would take me there, his plan to live there. But I clung still to the belief that Sook wouldn’t have done that, wouldn’t have betrayed me like that, and I didn’t dare say the words that proved how much I’d let my family down. So I stood. Just stood. Watching the car. Knowing it was heading to us. “Get rid of everything quickly,” I heard my grandmother say. And I turned round, wondering what she could be talking about, catching a look between the adults and realising I was missing something, that some secret was being kept from me. “Father,” I whispered, “I need to tell you something.” “Not now,” he replied and the worry in his voice made me gasp, and I watched dumbstruck as he knelt at a cupboard, pulled a drawer out at his feet and stretched an arm into the space it had left. With my mouth open, I watched him draw out handful after handful of papers, and saw my grandparents grab them from him, toss them on to the fire and poke them into the flames as they shot looks back and forth to Mother at the window, then to the door and then back to the jumble of things spread out across the floor. “But—” “I said not now, child!” Father shouted. I moved around them all, trying to make sense of what they were doing, staring at the papers: handwritten letters, photographs, some black and white, some colour, magazines, postcards, newspapers. I stared without understanding at the flames licking round the faces smiling out at me, devouring the words before I could even try to read them. “Not that one… please… not that one… let me keep that,” my mother begged, grabbing an envelope from the floor, a flash of colour peeking out, sheets of paper covered in scrawled handwriting. I watched her gulping back tears as she stuffed the envelope inside her top. “What are you doing?” I asked. “What is all this stuff?” I bent down, picking up a postcard of a city at night-time, the sky a beautiful deep, velvet blue, the streets alive with colour, buildings stretching up into darkness, the windows lit different colours, shop signs flashing neon symbols. My stomach turned. “This… this is the city I dreamt about.” I felt breathless and dizzy, staring at the neon signs on the card in my hand that I didn’t understand and couldn’t read. “This isn’t North Korea,” I said. “It’s not Pyongyang. Sook was right.” Everything stopped. They stared at me. “I didn’t… I didn’t…” But I couldn’t lie. Father knew, of course he did; he knew the second he heard the engine and saw my face. I had betrayed him. I dropped my eyes away from them, the pain of the guilt too much to bear, and I stared at the floor scattered with the secrets they had kept hidden from me for so many years, secrets I had ruined without a thought. I saw my grandmother’s feet stride towards me and I looked up. Her face wore an anger that was indescribable, venom I thought no one could ever feel for me. I didn’t see her lift her hand, but I felt it across the side of my face, and I felt the floor as I landed in a heap. I stayed there. My face stinging, the car engine louder, the shuffling of paper around me, the crackle of the fire as it destroyed their memories. My mother’s sobs. What had I done? I could smell the car’s exhaust. I felt my grandfather’s hand on my shoulder, a gentle squeeze, and I was so very scared. And I realised how stupid I’d been. How thoughtless and selfish and naive. Of course I couldn’t trust Sook. Of course he would tell his mother. How could I have thought anything else? I wanted to curl up in a ball on the floor and disappear. The flames destroyed the last of the papers and dwindled low to leave ashes, the delicate remains of destroyed memories, of knowledge and evidence of something I had never even been allowed to share. My father snatched the postcard from me and threw it in the fireplace. Outside, the engine stopped. I heard the doors open. Heard them slam shut. Heard voices. Deep and male. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. And they all stared at me. All, that was, except my grandfather. “You should’ve told her the truth years ago,” he said. “They’ll take her too. Think what they’ll do to her.” My mother turned to me, her eyes raw, tears streaming down her face. Her hand lifted to me and touched my cheek. “Go, Yoora, go quickly and hide. Anywhere you can. Keep away from these men. Don’t let them see you.” I stared at her, wishing she would hold me and hug me. “You have to go now,” she hissed. “Out of the back window.” I stumbled backwards, watching the faces of my family, the pain I had caused with a few thoughtless words in the dark, and I clambered through the back window, pushed it closed and collapsed on to the ground below. (#ulink_cb2b2ac0-fca2-5cec-a840-2c4084f63c5d) From under the window I heard the shouts of the men as they entered my home, heard my family’s quiet replies, but I didn’t know where to go, or what to do. Couldn’t think where I would be safe or how I could hide. They would know I was missing, come looking for me, hunt me down. I couldn’t go to Sook’s house, or to the school, or to a neighbour. Or to a friend, or a colleague of my father’s. Nobody would protect me. Nobody would risk their lives for me. I was the only person I could rely on. But I was scared. So scared. They were going to look out of the window, they were going to find me, they were going to take me away and kill me. And it was all, all, my fault. If only, I thought. A million if onlys. But something took hold of me, some survival instinct or fear, some voice in my head, and forced me to think and to act. There was a gap under the house close to me, a hole that maybe an animal had dug, and I squeezed myself into it, pulling the soft earth around me, smearing it on to my face, scooping up mud and dead leaves and branches on top of me. Surely they wouldn’t think I’d hide so close. I pulled off a shoe, throwing it as far as I could, hoping they’d see it, think I’d lost it when I was running, think I’d gone in that direction. My heart thudded and pounded in my chest and my arms and my head. Shouting came from inside the house. My grandmother’s voice pleading. My mother’s crying. Male voices barking, demanding – Where is your daughter? Silence. A scream. A thud. A sob. What have you been burning? they shouted. And there came no reply. I was a coward, hiding in the dirt and soil from what I had caused, while my family suffered, protecting me. Voices shouted about South Korea, about escape, about crimes against our Dear Leader. Threats of re-education through labour, prison camps, trials and execution. I shook with fear, tears stinging my eyes, my vision a blur. What have I done? I squeezed my eyes closed, wished I could block out what I could hear. I wanted to scream, run inside and tear them to pieces, shout and spit in their faces. There was nothing, nothing, I could do but sit and hide and listen. Guilt tore through me. And I hated Sook. With every part of my being, I hated him. With every breath I pulled, I thought of how he had betrayed me. How stupid I had been to trust him. To think he might actually care for me. I could see now how it had all been a trick, an elaborate hoax, a game. I despised him. Of course, why else would Min-Jee have let him have the food for me? She’d known all along. He had played me, and I was stupid enough to fall for it. I boiled with anger, at myself and at him. My mother’s cries sounded through the walls, and I burrowed further into the hole, wishing I could escape from what I’d caused. I hid like an animal because I was one. Yet they were traitors, just like the boy with the radio, and they deserved to be punished. That was what I’d been taught for a lifetime. But they’re not bad people, my head screamed, and I love them so much, and I know they’re guilty, punishable in the eyes of our government, but they’re my family, they just made a mistake. The guards shouted my name again, but no reply came. I heard the door slam, the traipsing of boots, the muttering of soldiers, heard them barge into the neighbours’ house, questions shouted, orders given. I felt terror. Pure, absolute terror. I heard voices closer, feet nearby, frosty grass crunching underneath them, smelt cigarette smoke and boot leather. I opened my eyes a crack, peering out, watching two men, certain they would spot the whites of my eyes. I drew myself back, hidden so low, so small, that surely, surely, they wouldn’t think I’d be this close. Their feet came towards me, and I slowed my breathing, desperate for my thumping heart not to give me away. I could see the cigarette dangling in one man’s fingers, the smoke curling outwards, drifting towards me, like it was hunting me down, pointing to where I was hidden. I felt it tickle my nose, irritate the back of my throat. Don’t cough, I told myself. I held my nose, cupped my hands round my mouth. My throat itched, I needed to cough. I watched the men. Watched them… watched them… waiting… waiting. I heard the man’s lips drag on the butt, watched his fingers flick the cigarette to the ground and saw it land in front of me. My throat burned, the cough stuck there, the cigarette smoke pointing me out. I was going to cough, I knew it, and they would hear me, and they would catch me, and we would be gone. All of us. A family stopped in time. A boot squashed the butt into the ground and I watched the soldier turn, my hands clasped round my mouth as I swallowed and swallowed, and I saw them reach the corner. And I coughed. But they didn’t turn. They had seen the shoe. They walked away and I breathed again. (#ulink_f2660c4f-e9c9-5de5-8c8b-37e56690178c) I stayed hidden for hours, my brain imagining what my ears thought they could hear – my family taken away, signs hammered into roadsides advertising tomorrow’s public trial, soldiers threatening neighbours who might be harbouring me, gossip muttered about what we had done. I didn’t hear Min-Jee, and I didn’t hear Sook. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». 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