by Sungju Lee
In my imagination, Kim Il-sung was a descendant of Dangun. He was part god, too.
After history, we moved on to geometry, biology, algebra, dance and music, the last of which I hated, for I felt these were subjects for girls.
After school, I would go to tae kwon do lessons at the most rigorous sojo in all of Pyongyang. “It’s where the boys who will become military leaders start their training,” my father told me each and every time he came to watch me do my tae kwon do patterns.
My mother would look away whenever my father talked of my plans to be in the military because she didn’t want me to become a career soldier. She once told me that my father was never home and that she didn’t want my future wife to feel the heaviness she did in her own heart whenever he was away. Her eyes drooped at the sides, reminding me of a doe I had once seen at the petting zoo at the amusement park Mangyeongdae Yuheejang. Mother’s irises were a soft brown, like the coat of a meadow bunting, and her speech was like a love song I might hear on my father’s radio.
My mother performed the traditional fan dance. I saw her do it only once, when I was nine, at the home of my paternal grandfather. She circled the room in the traditional dress of a white skirt with a red top and a long gold ribbon that stretched from her chest to the floor. She also wore a headdress that matched the gold and red in the fans she made float around the room like the wings of a swift. On a nearby stereo, someone had put on a record of flute and gayageum music.
My mother reminded me of midsummer sunsets.
My birthday is in March. I won’t tell you the exact Western year and month or the year by the Juche calendar we use in North Korea, the first year of which is 1912, when Kim Il-sung was born. But I can tell you that my birthday falls about a month before the biggest celebration of all in North Korea: our eternal father’s own birthday, April 15, also known as the Day of the Sun. On this day, every year, lots of stories were published in the newspapers about our supreme leader’s childhood.
On my birthday, I had all my friends to my apartment—friends from school and friends from the tae kwon do sojo. My birthday meal, like that of most boys in Pyongyang, was always eggs and pork, both of which represented, my mother would tell us as she passed around our bowls, “prosperity and good fortune.”
I’d always end my birthday by playing in the park, even if the ground was still covered in snow. My friends and I would reenact war battles, and I was the general of the Joseon army. I’d go first, picking one boy to be part of my unit. Another boy would be leader of the American imperialists. He’d pick next, and then me again, and so on until all the boys were chosen. We’d then hunt each other down, using sticks as guns. If my unit caught a member of the opposing army, we’d lock him up in the makeshift prison of the twisted iron of the jungle gym. My side, naturally, always won, as we represented the greatest country on earth. Then my unit would march, with me leading it, as in my dream, past my father, whom I would salute, as if he were our great eternal father standing on a platform in the center of Kim Il-sung Square.
Most people in the United States remember where they were on September 11, 2001. For people in Joseon, the day everyone remembers is July 8, 1994, or year 82 in the Juche calendar.
It was a Friday. I came home from school to find our apartment empty. My mother was still at her job as a teacher.
I stretched out on the floor underneath the baby grand piano and played with my toy soldiers. Because it was a regular school day, there were no television signals and so I couldn’t watch Boy General. I was bored.
While I was very much content fulfilling my obligations as a child to attain the goal of being a military leader, the truth was that I was also lonely. I was going for my white belt in tae kwon do and practicing every second day. I was also studying at the top elementary school to gain entrance to an engineering program at the university, as my father said that being a general who is also an engineer meant I could help the regime better. I could build tunnels for our armies to hide in, for instance. But I was an only child. I wanted a sibling, a brother. And so, in quiet moments, like then, when only the tick-tock of the clock in the foyer could be heard, a loneliness grew out of me like a rose aching to bloom.
On this day, I was particularly sad because some of my friends had planned during the August school break to visit the sea. I’d never been, but wanted to. My father’s work kept him in Pyongyang, and, therefore, my mother and I weren’t going anywhere—like every other August holiday.
Then I heard it. A song? No, a wail, followed by another, and soon several voices were crying, almost howling, in unison.
I pushed myself up against the wall, my entire body shaking. Dread filled me. “We’ve been invaded,” I whispered out loud, tossing my army figurines onto the floor.
“Eomeoni!” I called out, hoping maybe, just maybe, she was somewhere in the apartment. Silence, at least inside. Outside, the noise grew louder.
I pulled myself up and out from underneath the piano and crept to the window. As I neared, my heart started to beat wildly, as if my insides already knew something that my eyes were just getting ready to see. I reached up to open the window and discovered my hands were shaking.
“Eomeoni,” I stammered, hearing the latch of the door. “You need to come!” I was unable to look away from the scene below me.
“Adeul,” my mother called out, her feet a soft pitter-patter on the hardwood floor that was protected by a mustard-colored sheet of paper.
She pulled me into her arms and held me tight around the waist. “Adeul, we haven’t been invaded,” she whispered in my ear. “Something else has happened. The eternal leader has died.”
I looked up. Her eyes were red, and tears dripped down her cheeks and stained her white silk blouse.
“Eomeoni,” I said, choking on my words.
My mother fell to the floor then, with me still in her arms. We remained huddled together like this, so lost in some mist that we didn’t even get up to bow to my father when he arrived home. All I remember is abeoji sliding to the ground, joining us, too.
My mother’s parents—my grandfather, hal-abeoji, and my grandmother, hal-meoni—found the three of us in this position when twilight pulled itself over the city.
My mother’s father was a doctor and had a busy practice, so I never saw him much. I didn’t recognize him at first because his hair was thinning and graying at the temples and the lines on his face had deepened. But he had the same droop in the corners of his eyes as my mother and the bushiest eyebrows of anyone I had ever met. My grandmother carried a basket of white magnolias, which she said we would offer as a family at the foot of the statue of our supreme leader on Mansudae Hill. “To show how grateful we all are for the abundance our eternal father has shown us,” she whispered.
I tried to eat some kimchi and pork with abeoji and my grandfather, but not much made it to my stomach. I picked at the food with my chopsticks and looked down into my bowl the entire time. My mother had opened the windows wide so we could share in the mourning, which came in big waves, as I imagined the sea would do against a rugged, sharp shoreline. Inside, we were all quiet, like the family of mice I had once stumbled upon nesting in a tiny hole where the wall ended and the floor in the hallway of our apartment building began.
That night, we went as a family to the monument. Walking, we melted into the crowd, shuffling our feet and moving so slowly that crawling on all fours would have got us to Mansudae Hill faster. We were in a sea of bodies, crying and swaying from side to side on the heels of their shoes as if the world itself had ended. When it was finally my family’s turn to lay down the white magnolias and show our respect, my father bowed three times and then wailed like all the others, shocking me, for I’d never seen him cry before. As I started to move toward the monument, my mother pulled me back. Red-faced and perspiring from the heat of so many people, she pinched my arm hard and ordered me to cry, too.
“But I can’t,” I said in such a low voice even she couldn’t hear. “I
thought Kim Il-sung was a god. Gods don’t die.”
When we got home, I was sent right to bed. But I tossed and turned on my mat in my room, listening to the wailing outside, which eventually retreated, like a swarm of bees following their queen to a new home, until our apartment was silent again … except for the tick-tock of the clock and the chime announcing the coming of the hour … one, two … three—that’s when I pulled myself up and crept to the front door.
Unlike other times when I snuck out to be with Bo-Cho, on this night my feet moved as if I were wearing socks made of lead. I kept thinking that when I stepped outside I would meet the spirit of our eternal leader, and he would be cross with me for not crying. For the first time, I was also conscious that my nights with Bo-Cho did not make me a good son of the government. But I was more lonely than afraid, so I pushed on, tiptoeing down the concrete staircase.
Just as I pushed open the side door to our apartment building and felt the warm night air embrace me, a strong hand grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me through. I pinched my eyes shut, convinced I was about to face the ghost of the eternal leader.
“Open your eyes, my little yaeya,” a familiar voice said.
I looked into my grandfather’s wrinkled face, lit by the match he was using to light a cigarette.
My legs shook. Boys I knew, when they did something wrong, got beatings from their fathers. I was sure that was coming my way. Adding to my fears was my grandfather’s cold stare as he puffed on his cigarette in silence.
“Where are you going?” he finally asked, putting out his cigarette and taking another from his shirt pocket. His voice was thick and smooth, like honey, which I’d only ever had with my grandfather. “Honey’s very hard to get,” he had told me as he dipped a spoon into the syrupy, sweet liquid and then poured it into some hot water. “My dream”—he had winked—“is to one day look after the bees that make the honey.”
I was defeated. I didn’t want to lie to my grandfather. I’d face my punishment. “To see Bo-Cho,” I said after a long pause and with a sigh. “I’m going to see Bo-Cho.”
My grandfather’s laugh was first low and then rose, eventually erupting like a volcano, scaring me with its force, for I thought for sure he was going to awaken the entire building.
Then he stopped, put a finger to his lips, and said, “Shush,” as if I were the one making all the noise, not him. “Show me what you do when you sneak out at night,” he said.
I nodded nervously and pointed with a shaking hand at Bo-Cho’s home.
“Do you just stand there and look at it?” my grandfather asked.
“No,” I admitted, digging a toe into the ground. “I usually … ,” I started and then stopped. “I’m embarrassed to say.”
“You usually what?” he probed.
“I usually go inside,” I said with another sigh.
“Inside what?” he asked, startling me because he ended his question with a laugh. In history class, I had learned that the best way to get political prisoners to reveal their secrets was to make them laugh and trust their interrogators. I couldn’t tell whether my grandfather was goading me, getting me to admit to him what I did at night so he could decide the best way to punish me.
“Inside what?” he asked again, cocking an eyebrow.
I groaned. “I usually go inside Bo-Cho’s house and lie beside him.” I then got down on my knees, lowered my head, and started to plead with him to have mercy on me. “I’m only a child, only a decade old. I’m sorry I made such a mistake not crying over our eternal father’s death and by sneaking out to be with Bo-Cho.”
My grandfather’s fingers spread out on top of my head like an octopus’s tentacles. “I’m not angry,” he whispered, tilting my head up so I had to look right at him. For once, he was not smoking. “Let’s go in together,” he said. “Do you think we’ll both fit?”
It was a tight squeeze, but somehow the three of us managed to lie down, with our heads outside the door. Bo-Cho rested his head of soft, short fur on my chest while my grandfather and I looked up at the stars. For a while, we remained quiet, listening to the crickets. Then my grandfather asked if I wanted to hear a story.
“Yes, hal-abeoji,” I said, beaming. I sure did.
¤ ¤ ¤
“There were once two brothers, Heungbu and Nolbu. Nolbu was very greedy, whereas Heungbu was compassionate and kind. When their father died, the boys were told to split their father’s fortune in two. But Nolbu refused. He took it all, and Heungbu and his family became very poor.
“One day a snake was climbing up a tree near Heungbu’s house, wanting to eat a swallow. Heungbu chased the snake away and helped the swallow heal from its injuries. The swallow’s family gave Heungbu a seed as a thank-you. That seed grew into gourds that, when opened, were full of jewels that brought Heungbu and his family great wealth.
“On hearing of Heungbu’s good fortune, Nolbu wanted a gourd, too. So he broke a swallow’s leg and then fixed it, hoping the swallow would repay the kindness with a magic seed. But when Nolbu split open his gourds, great pain came out, leaving his family now very poor.”
“The moral of the story,” my grandfather told me, stroking my forehead in much the same way my mother did when I had a fever, “is that good deeds lay a foundation for a house of great wealth and luck. Greed and ego, however, lay a foundation of destruction. The house that is built on such a foundation, one day, no matter what, will be torn down.”
A dark blanket pulled itself over Pyongyang, a blanket that hugged us tight from the day our eternal leader died until … well, two and a half years later. People talked in whispers on the streets when they moved from work to home. In our house, abeoji was always tired. He no longer tutored me in math or lectured me to practice more tae kwon do or to study harder. It was as though he no longer cared if I did well or not. My mother said that part of mourning was being quiet and sad. It was our way, she said, of honoring the loss of our eternal leader.
I believed her at first and thought this was why the people on the streets looked like deflating balloons as they drooped down from the sky after the Day of the Sun. But as the creases on my mother’s forehead darkened and she stopped playing the piano, I began to wonder if something else was going on that she and abeoji weren’t telling me.
I felt emptier than I ever had.
It was a school day in January 1997, about two months before my tenth birthday. I was returning from the tae kwon do sojo, walking home on a sidewalk layered with an icing of powdered snow. I held my mouth open, catching snowflakes on my tongue. As I approached my apartment building, two things happened that were omens that my life was about to take a drastic turn—for the worse.
The first: Just as I passed under the streetlamp, the light flickered and then went out. The second was when I discovered a bird of prey, a falcon or a hawk, dead on the walkway, its white stomach held high, as if it were a king, even in its afterlife. I didn’t have to step through our door and be engulfed in the thick air of sadness to know. Seeing eomeoni’s tear-streaked face, with abeoji behind her, shaking his head and rocking back and forth on his heels, repeating, “No, no, no,” I burst into tears and fell to my knees. Had the school called and said I failed an examination? Had I not graded well enough to receive my first belt in tae kwon do? Had someone else died? “Have I failed you, abeoji?” I cried in despair.
My mother pulled me into her arms and rubbed my back. “We’re going on a long vacation,” she whispered. “Your father …”
“My father what?”
“Your father has been asked to go away for a while … to take a holiday,” eomeoni said, squeezing me so tight, it hurt.
“Why?” I said, pulling myself loose.
“Because America is blocking our imports and exports. America threatens our most peaceful land.” Her voice was wavering, so she paused and cleared her throat. “We’re going on a long vacation,” she then repeated. She tried to smile to reassure me.
“I don’t understand
,” I said, staring at her, so many thoughts flooding my head I didn’t know which question to ask first. “If America is threatening us, we need to be here,” I finally said. My father and I would be needed to help defend the country.
“We’re going on a holiday to the north … near the sea,” my father said in a hoarse voice. I turned to him. He was wearing his work clothes from the day before, including a khaki wool Mao jacket that was rumpled, as if he’d slept in it.
“What should I do?” I asked in a desperate voice, looking back to my mother. Her soft brown eyes wilted at the corners, like a rose just past full bloom.
“I’ll bring you a chest to put your clothes in.”
“And my books and comics?”
My father coughed. I looked over. He shook his head.
“You can’t take everything,” my mother whispered. “There won’t be room. I’ll help you choose what you can bring.”
My father moved in beside eomeoni. “You’ll be going to a new school while we’re on holiday,” he said.
I just stared at him. I didn’t even blink. I wanted him to answer my question about why we were leaving when we were needed here, but in Joseon, a son never demands explanations from his elders. I had to wait.
“And Bo-Cho?” I asked instead.
My father looked down and bit his lip as if he were trying not to weep.
“Who will look after him?” I cried out.
“Someone will,” he said.
I turned quickly and ran to the front door, my father not far behind me, calling my name and telling me to stop. But I didn’t stop until I was outside, where I saw one of my father’s colleagues leading Bo-Cho away on a leash.
I willed my feet to move faster than they’ve ever moved in my life.
