She still refused to talk about what had happened that night… or about who had done this to her. I had, however, concluded it must have been another guard who did it… nothing else made sense. I couldn’t imagine Chul or Chang Min being in the condition to do something like that after our encounter. It just wasn’t possible.
I went to school as normal this week, but I didn’t feel normal. Every time I was outside our house or the classroom - the only two places I felt relatively safe - I was anxious. Every time I saw a guard, I panicked. But I controlled myself not to run away. Drawing unnecessary attention to myself was the worst thing I could do right now. The most dreadful agony, however, originated from the growing feeling of abandonment by the Great General. The feeling that he had personally left me to rot in this hell on earth festered inside me. And even though I knew it was silly, I also felt the last connection to my old life back in the Capital had been severed together with my hair. I still hadn’t seen how it looked, but it felt ugly… even though Nari assured me it wasn’t that bad.
Now that Chul had turned into my enemy, Jun Ha was my only friend in the world. I talked to Mina as well these days, but not for long periods, and mainly about Nari and how she was doing. Even though I couldn’t push her away, I didn’t want to let her too close either. Regardless, it was more comfortable talking to Jun Ha. He never forced me to talk about that, apart from the normal courtesy questions about how Nari was doing. Min Ji and So Won also came over to ask me about Nari a few times. I could tell they knew she wasn’t home with the flu… rumors apparently spread fast in a place like this.
On Thursday that week, I saw Chul for the first time since he’d attacked me. It was during the lunch break as I sat in the shade of some trees next to the School of Juche. He was sitting next to Chang Min together with the other guards under the trees by the guardhouse, just like he had done on the day of the attack. Even from this distance, I could see the big red blemish on his face where I had broken his nose, but it didn’t seem to bother him. The guards were laughing and joking just like last time, but this time it didn’t seem like they were mocking Chul. Now it seemed like he was part of the group.
The moment I laid eyes on him, my blood boiled up inside of me. My whole body was consumed by pure unadulterated hatred, and I knew that if he came this way, I wouldn’t be able to constrain myself. I tried to look away but couldn’t. Before long, Chul noticed me. His face changed in an instant, but after acknowledging me with a quick guilty glance, he averted his eyes and continued to laugh with the others. I felt my legs twitching. Then my whole body. I was just about to jump to my feet and charge over to what surely would be my immediate demise, but at that exact moment, I got distracted by seeing Lucky limping along the road past the group of guards. With Chang Min in the lead, they started taunting and throwing things at him until he had hurried out of reach. Turned out even Lucky had a sense of self-preservation. As he walked past us, he suddenly noticed me and started moving his mouth, mumbling something incoherent. I became flustered and jumped to my feet, ready to rush back into the school building if he came this way, but luckily, he averted his eyes and limped off in the opposite direction. I sat down again.
Great General… how long will they let that walking corpse continue his miserable existence here?
Before Chul could re-enter my mind, Jun Ha came over and sat next to me. I had seen him standing by the edge of the field with the tall girl I remembered seeing crying during the execution. The one who afterward had been pushed to the ground by the boy with the black lion’s mane. I noticed Jun Ha and the girl looking in my direction while talking, but my mind had been too preoccupied with Chul to give it a second thought.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, Areum,” Jun Ha sighed. “I’ve got some information for you… but I’m not sure if I should tell you.”
He looked over at the group of guards on the other side of the road.
“If it’s about Nari, you have to tell me.”
He sighed again, averting his eyes.
“If I do tell you, you have to promise me not to do anything stupid… actually, you have to promise me not to do anything at all. Can you do that?”
“I promise,” I said, but Jun Ha didn’t look convinced. “I promise! Okay?” I repeated. “Come on… whatever it is, I need to know!”
He still wasn’t convinced, but he nodded his head.
“Fine… I’ll tell you.” He emitted another deep sigh. “I… er… I have found out who… who raped… your sister.” I pierced my eyes into the side of his face since his eyes were fixed on the cornfield before us. I couldn’t breathe. “It was… it was Private Gang,” he bit his lip. “It was Chul.” He nodded over towards the trees on the other side where Chul and the others were sitting. “That other guy was there as well… Corporal Lee.”
The adrenaline swirled through my body like a tornado as Jun Ha examined my reaction with great concern on his face.
I should have known! I should have known! I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN! It was him all along. That BASTARD! It was HIM!
Suddenly, my eyes once more crossed with Chul’s. My whole body tensed up. Despite being so far from each other, I saw him flinching at the fury on my face. I jumped to my feet, ready to charge. It was time to do what I should have done that night… to finish what I started. But Jun Ha grabbed my wrist firmly and pulled me back down, looking me hypnotically in the eyes.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Areum,” he whispered. “You promised.” He sighed again, rolling his eyes. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
I relaxed my arm, closed my eyes, and took a couple of deep breaths to compose myself.
“No, it’s good you told me… I needed to know,” I reopened them and looked at him. “Thank you, Jun Ha. And I’m sorry… I won’t do anything stupid… I promise! I will control myself.”
He examined my face and then nodded.
“I’m just looking out for you,” he said. “I don’t want you to get into even more trouble.”
“I know… thank you.”
I looked over at the field where Jun Ha had been talking to the tall, fierce-looking girl, and for a moment, I let Chul leave my mind.
“Who was that?” I asked.
“Who was who?”
“That girl… the one you were talking to. Was she the one who told you?”
“Yeah… that’s right… that’s Hana… she’s…. very connected. She has been very good to me… almost like a big sister. But if I were you, I would stay far away from her. Even if she takes care of her own… to most others… well… she’s trouble. Let’s just leave it at that.”
“I saw her crying during the execution,” I said.
Jun Ha sighed again.
“Yeah… the girl that was shot… Namjoo… that was her best friend. And her right-hand girl in here. They always looked out for each other. It was a real tragedy to lose her… and it’s all because of—” He frowned his face but then bit his tongue. “It doesn’t matter…”
I pondered that information for a while.
“Why did she tell you about Chul and my sister?”
“She had her reasons,” Jun Ha said, making it clear he wouldn’t go into further details. He looked back over at the group of laughing guards. “I don’t know if you care… but she also told me why he did it. Do you remember the time General Roh went berserk on Chul? Right out here on the road in front of everyone? I don’t know what that was all about, but afterward… Chul had to prove himself as a man… and… you know… he had to do that by… taking a girl… one of the prisoners… and… he picked Nari. I don’t know why. Maybe she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but… anyway, that’s what they say happened. And now that he has proven himself as a man… he and General Roh are on good terms again… that’s why he’s over there, at ease, laughing with the others. Now he’s safe.”
I looked at Jun Ha with incredulity.
“Are you defending what he did?”
“What? N
o… No! Of course not! Great General, I would never do that. It was deplorable. I’m just explaining it to you the way it was explained to me, okay?”
I clenched my fist to get myself back under control. Now was not the time to pick a fight with my only friend.
“What’s the deal between him and General Roh anyway?” I asked once I had composed myself.
“Nobody knows,” Jun Ha said. “It’s strange. I mean… why would a high-ranking General care what a low-ranking, insignificant Private does or doesn’t do? He’s not even under his direct command… he’s several levels below. But it’s not only that… it’s also the circumstances of how Chul ended up here that is strange. I mean… he’s not typical guard material.”
“What do you mean ended up here?” I asked
“It was a little over a year ago. General Roh suddenly left the camp for several weeks. I remember it well because that had never happened before. And also… people were afraid Colonel Wan would take over, which would have been very, very, very bad for all of us.” He gave me a meaningful look that I had no problem understanding. “Anyway… a couple of weeks later, General Roh comes back, and exactly one week after that, Chul and Chang Min start working here… just like that,” he shrugged his shoulders. “Okay… Chang Min is probably the most typical guard there is, so nothing strange there. But Chul? Well… it just doesn’t make sense. And there’s always some weird tension between him and General Roh… since long before their fallout on the main road. But, as I said… no one knows what their story is.”
“And Chang Min?” I asked.
Jun Ha chuckled.
“I didn’t know you were on a first-name basis with Corporal Lee.”
“Only when he’s not around,” I said.
Jun Ha smirked.
“Well… with Chang Min it went the other way. He quickly rose in ranks, and now he works directly under the General himself. Talk about preferential treatment! He treats him almost like a son.”
I leaned back at the trunk of the tree. I disliked Chang Min, but he was not the focus of my hatred at the moment.
“I still can’t believe it was him who did it,” I said. “Chul, I mean… I thought he was different.”
“No one is different,” Jun Ha scoffed. “Trust me… they’re all the same. All of them are horrible… a few are just slightly less horrible.”
“I guess… but I thought I knew him. And also, that night… he was so… drunk.”
Jun Ha looked at me, bewildered.
“How do you know that?”
I sighed. There was no point in hiding the truth from him.
“Because… he attacked me first.”
“He did what?”
Jun Ha was so shocked he almost fell over.
“He did… he… he came to me… I was drinking from the river… and he told me to follow him up the mountains… him and Chang Min… and then… they attacked me. But they were so drunk I could fight them off easily… they were both knocked out cold on the ground when I left them.”
Jun Ha looked at me with enormous eyes. I had never seen him so taken aback before.
“Great General,” he whispered. “You… you actually knocked out… not only one guard, but two guards?”
“Yes… well… I don’t know if it was me, or… I mean… they were really drunk…”
“And you’re still here!” he said with amazement. “That is nothing short of incredible. In this place, you get taken away to the Center of Truth just for looking a guard in the eyes. You get executed for just taking too long to answer… I mean, you know all the crazy Sacred Rules we have to follow. And you… you beat up a guard… and nothing happens. That’s just… wow!”
“Well… like I said, he was very drunk. Maybe he doesn’t even remember… I mean, I broke his nose and all… but maybe he doesn’t remember who did it.”
“Oh, he remembers,” Jun Ha said. “Trust me… he remembers. And he remembers what he did to your sister as well. Make no mistake about that.”
We sat in silence for a while.
“So, what can we do?” I finally asked.
“Areum… we can’t do anything. It sucks, but that’s reality. Just relish the fact that you have beaten him up… even if it happened before… you know… what happened to your sister. Okay? But that’s it. You were extremely lucky, and I beg you to keep your promise. Next time you will not be that lucky… that much you can be sure of.”
He searched my eyes for confirmation, and I searched his eyes back.
“But you know people,” I said. “You know prisoners… and guards… you know that tall girl… Hana… people who can make things happen… right?”
“Trust me, Areum… you don’t want to get involved in that. It’s better to stay out of it… not only for you but for your whole family.”
I sighed, looking down at the ground.
“I’m not sure I can leave it alone. Seeing that smug son of a bitch every day… bragging to the others about his conquest over my baby sister…”
“I understand… I truly do. But trust me… once you start something like that, you can’t un-start it.”
“Would you prefer I go and do something on my own?”
I knew I was testing the boundaries of my only friendship here, but I also knew I couldn’t stop.
Jun Ha sighed.
“I shouldn’t have told you anything. I should have known you wouldn’t be able to leave it alone.”
I gave him a long, demanding stare until he sighed again.
“Fine… fine… I’ll look into it, okay? I’m not promising anything, but I’ll look into it. Just… don’t do anything stupid! Wait for me, please! Okay? You must promise me!”
“Okay,” I nodded.
I will wait… but not forever…
“Good… and please… don’t get your hopes up.”
The break was over and we headed back into Miss Ae’s classroom, passing the always furious Corporal Bun on the way. Despite my emotional turmoil during the lunch break, I somehow felt lighter. I didn’t know what to expect from Jun Ha - or when to expect it - but I felt something I had started to think I would never feel again.
Hope.
Jun Ha had specifically told me not to get my hopes up, but I didn’t care. Anyway, he had phrased it perfectly himself when he said that I’m not the kind of person who would be able leave something like this alone.
I’m not.
I’m the kind of person who will get revenge!
Everything that had happened between Nari and me was in the past. None of that mattered anymore. The only thing that mattered was that she was my baby sister.
I will avenge her!
Juche Year 83
-
July
CHAPTER 5
I took over the chore of cooking while Nari was recovering. By the end of the week, she insisted she was fine and that she could do it, but I didn’t let her. The full portion of rice we had the first day after Nari’s incident had been a one-time occurrence. After that, we had to reduce the portions to compensate, especially since we now had to share with Mrs. Choy and Mina the nights they came over. The problem was that the sweet scent of the rice filled the room no less than before, tricking our minds that the pot was filled to the brim with the sticky treasure and that a feast awaited us. The disappointment once we lifted the lid was grave. The bulk part of our diet was, as always, the tasteless watery soup of ground corn and cabbage, and my palates protested vehemently every time it entered my mouth. The little rice we got I always left for last to compensate for the bitter aftertaste of the soup, and I let it linger on my tongue long after dinner time was over. In reality, it might have been better to do it the other way around because, in this way, I spent the entire evening yearning for more rice. So yes, sharing with the Choys was tough, but at least we didn’t have to make any more uncomfortable visits to Doctor Death.
I was filled with a heap of emotions these days, most of them negative. Frustration, anger, and hatred
was just the tip of the iceberg. But I also felt something else. Something I had not experienced in a long time, and which I could only explain as love - a feeling I for as long as I could remember had only felt toward our eternal Father - the Great General. Now, I felt it for my sister.
My poor weak little sister…
In contrast to this new sensation of love for my sister, my hatred for Chul knew no boundaries. He was the embodiment of all evil in this Great General-forsaken place, and I wanted him to perish. But not before suffering greatly… as Nari had suffered.
Our situation at home was tense. I stayed with Nari after school until Sun Hee and Young Il came home late at night. After that, I kept my distance. Young Il was the real reason this had happened to Nari, and I hated him almost as much as I hated Chul. Sun Hee - no surprise - took her husband’s side, and I continued feeling her accusing looks implying it was all my fault, not his. She still helped me with my appearance, though, making my hair, face, and clothes sufficiently dirty not to stand out. She worked on me fast and methodically, as if she was one of the makeup artists back at the Capital Theater. After a couple of days of unbearable shame over my new appearance, my head no longer felt lighter, and I had all but stopped thinking about it. Part of the reason was that fewer people looked at me now than before, making me feel invisible. And that made me feel safe, which was a feeling that trumped shame at the moment.
My parents have acted differently since the incident. They were often pulling away to the opposite corner of the room where they for long periods engaged in intense whispering. As soon as Nari and I got close, they stopped immediately and just looked at us with guilty eyes. Nari asked what they were talking about a couple of times, but since the answer was always nothing, she stopped.
On top of everything else going on, yet another fear was growing inside me… and it was undoubtedly growing inside Nari as well. We were both painfully aware that we only had a couple of days left until our fifteenth birthday on the eighth of July, which meant that in the eyes of the camp, we would become adults. That meant no more school. That meant we would be given work assignments. And that meant we would have to work the whole day, every day of the week… for the rest of our time here.
The Weeping Masses: A Young Adult Dystopian Survival Saga (Juche - Part 3) Page 4
