“But Colonel W—”
“I have complete faith in Colonel Wan. He’s a highly regarded and very experienced officer… and he has served me and this camp for many years.”
“But—”
“No more buts, Miss Kim. I’m running out of both time and patience. If there is nothing further, I will ask you to leave. And I want to make myself very clear now, so you’d better pay attention… I will not see you again in my office unless it is I who have called you… is that understood?”
I nodded, fighting tooth and nail to hide the turmoil inside me.
“Good. You’re dismissed!”
I stood up on my shaky legs and bowed deeply over his desk, praying I would be able to keep the little content I had in my stomach.
“Thank you, Sir… thank you for your time and your patience… I’m very grateful,” I mumbled mechanically but extended my bow long enough to get another look at the picture on his desk.
This time, there was not a shred of doubt left in my mind, and a final flame of bravery - or foolishness - sparked up inside me.
“S-sir… is that my… mother?”
General Roh’s face turned scarlet red in the blink of an eye, which made his glaring silvery ghost eye look more demonic than ever. He tipped the picture over, and growled, “You are getting on my last nerve, Miss Kim. YOU’RE DISMISSED! Don’t make me say it again.”
I almost ran out of his office, and I didn’t stop until I was safely out in the Bloodyard. I felt like I was losing my balance and had to lean against the wall not to fall. I stood there for a long while, panting.
It was mom! It was! But how? And why?
I knew I needed to find out what this all meant… but I didn’t have the faintest idea how.
Chul came over the next day to ask how it had gone. Since the visit with General Roh had been nothing short of a massive failure, I despised myself for having opened the door to Chul to make him feel comfortable enough to come over to talk to me again… for nothing.
“It didn’t go as I had hoped… but don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” I said flatly, trying to close the door again.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “If there is anything else—”
“Thanks, but we’ll be fine on our own… you don’t have to help us anymore.”
The sadness on his face as he left told me he had understood my message loud and clear.
Areum, never ask that monster for help again!
The days following my visit to General Roh continued in the same excruciating way as the previous. The constant hunger pains grew in intensity with each day, and even though we neared the end of our punishment, it had never felt further away. As usual, Nari was barely conscious most of the time, so I slaved away filling both of our quotas under the relentless August sun. What surprised me the most was that I managed to do so every single day. I concluded it must be because of a combination of the magic water rations and my constant anger that gave me the energy I needed… at least until the moment my head hit the rag pillow at night and my brain switched off from pure exhaustion. Whatever it was that kept me going, it allowed us to avoid another open confrontation with Mr. Ma and his thugs. The war we fought was instead one of perseverance. The enemy observed us constantly, in silence and with great patience… biding their time and waiting for any slip-up that would spark the final battle… the battle I knew we had no chance of winning.
At least I didn’t have any problems sleeping.
Dad came home with new bruises every day, and he was becoming more apathetic every time I saw him. Losing the rice had been the straw that broke the camel’s back. In short, our family was in disarray. Even if we didn’t talk about it, both Nari and I had the growing feeling mom didn’t live with us anymore. Most days, she didn’t come home, and the days she honored us with her presence, she came home after we had gone to bed and left again before we woke up. I tried to remain hopeful, but I couldn’t help suspecting she had gotten used to her better life in the Chrysanthemum Garden. Maybe she used it as a way to disconnect herself from her family… and all the problems that were attached to it. In a way, I couldn’t blame her. After all…
… hadn’t that been my plan when qualifying for the Great General’s National Gymnastics Team?
Whatever the reason, it left Nari devastated. Not only had she lost her other sister and best friend… now she was in different ways losing both her parents as well.
One day in the cornfield, as the hunger pains and the merciless sun had put my mind in a near meditative state, something from the corner of my eye caught my attention. Looking down, I was at first not sure if it was real or if I was hallucinating. I blinked several times to see if it would disappear. It didn’t. What sat before me on the ground was a large fleshy toad. It was predominantly brown, but with streaks of green. I blinked a few more times before concluding it was real. It was just sitting there, blinking, and nobody else was around to grab it for themselves. Finding something that contained so much meat was nothing short of a miracle. My mouth watered so much I almost drooled. I silently removed my shoes, hunched over, and slowly approached it from behind. I crouched down. It was almost within my reach. I initiated my attack, but just then, a tap on my shoulder made me shriek and almost fall over.
“What’re you doing, Miss Kim?” Jun Ha asked with a smirk.
I looked back down on the ground in a panic, but the toad was long gone.
“You scared me!” I pushed his shoulder angrily as I felt another stab of hunger pain pierce through my stomach. But then he laughed his usual kind laugh, and I started laughing as well. My delirious state had made me giggly.
“What are you doing here?” I asked once we had settled down.
“Reporting for duty,” he said, raising his hand into a salute. “Today is my fifteenth birthday, so now it’s time I earn my keep.”
“Oh, happy birthday,” I said. “Or… I’m sorry? I don’t know…”
“I’ll take both,” he laughed. “And don’t worry… I’m actually in the cornfield by choice. This is a good place to conduct business.”
“Business? What kind of business?”
“Well… it’s probably better if you don’t know. Anyway… how are you doing, Areum? You don’t look so great. And your sister is a bit—”
“We’re having a streak of bad luck,” I said. “But don’t worry… we’ll manage.”
He gave me a worried look. It was too much for me to take, so I averted my eyes.
“Okay… but please let me know if you need any help… I’m here for you.”
I nodded, staring at his feet with my hollow cheeks flushed.
“Be safe… I’ll check back on you later,” he said and walked over to talk to Mr. Ma.
I felt happy. Finally, one good thing happening to me… even if it made me lose the fleshy toad.
At lunch break, Jun Ha joined Nari and me on the log in the shade where we ate our half portion of flavorless watery soup as every day. The sweet scent of the harvested corn that the soft breeze carried to us taunted me and increased my hunger pains.
“Just imagine how much food that is there, right in front of our eyes,” Jun Ha looked dreamingly at the corn and rice fields extending into the far distance. “And here we are, eating almost nothing but water, with just a little bit of corn and cabbage mixed into it.”
“And tree bark,” I added.
“Really?” he looked at me in surprise.
“Really… loads of it. I worked at the watermill before… I saw how they made that sludge they’re giving us.”
“That’s just… disgusting,” he wrinkled his nose but continued eating.
Once we were finished, Nari went to return our bowls, leaving the two of us alone on the log.
“Hey, Jun Ha,” I said. “There is something I need to ask. You know most things that go on in Yodok… and I guess, also stuff that happened in the past?”
“Sure, I hear things… what do you want to know?”
&
nbsp; “Well… I’ve been in General Roh’s office two times now—”
“Really?” he looked at me, surprised.
“Yes, and… he has a picture on his desk… of a woman, and… after I saw it again the other day, I’m one hundred percent sure the picture is of… er… of my mother… well… of my mother when she was younger, to be exact… she was a famous theater actress, you know.”
I examined Jun Ha’s face. His expression reminded me of how Nari had looked at me after our rice had been stolen.
“I do know he has a picture on his desk,” he finally said. “But that picture is of his wife.”
“His wife?” I almost shrieked. “He’s married?”
“Was,” Jun Ha nodded. “He was married… she died in childbirth many years ago, right here in the camp. Doctor Death was the attending doctor… and it seems that General Roh has been punishing him ever since… they say that’s why he lost his mind and started torturing prisoners. But all this happened long before I was born, so—”
“General Roh… has a child?”
“No,” Jun Ha shook his head. “The child supposedly died as well, and they say that’s what broke General Roh… why he went completely berserk and ran out into the fields and started killing prisoners… as I told you the first time we met…”
I was in a state of complete shock.
“So he keeps a picture of his late wife… on his desk?
“That’s right… I have seen it myself, although I can’t remember exactly what she looked like… it was over a year ago. But I do know he still loves her even in death… he never remarried, and he doesn’t even sleep with the female prisoners here as most of the other officers do.” He looked at me with compassionate eyes. “Areum… the woman in the picture on his desk is definitely not your mother… that I can tell you with absolute certainty.”
“But… I was so sure it was her… it was like a spitting image,” I shook my head.
“Areum, just forget about it. It was your mind playing tricks on you,” Jun Ha put his hand on my arm. “It’s an old photograph of General Roh’s wife when she was young, and it probably just made some kind of connection in your brain, making you see your mother as you remember her from when she was young, you know.”
“Maybe,” I said, but I still wasn’t completely convinced. We had posters of mom from the peak of her acting career on the walls of our apartment in the Capital, and mom had not just looked like the woman in the picture… it had been like a reflection in the mirror.
Like a lightning bolt from a clear sky, another thought suddenly struck me.
If General Roh is still is in love with his late wife, why would he want a spitting image of her working close to him in the Chrysanthemum Garden… reminding him of her death all the time?
Unless…
This disturbing thought grew relentlessly and mercilessly inside me and planted a seed of another, even more, disturbing thought.
Has she abandoned us…
… for him?
CHAPTER 29
Despite being deprived of food, our faces and bodies healed - although not at a fast pace - and my rib ached slightly less with each day that passed. But the constant hunger made me lose clarity, and my mind constantly spiraled back to the story of General Roh’s wife dying in childbirth and the feeling that our mother has abandoned us for a privileged life in the Chrysanthemum Garden. This was, however, a forbidden topic, and I never said a word of it to Nari.
A few nights later, as we were cleaning up after dinner, I noticed Nari scratching at her neck and around her throat.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she shyly closed her dirt-covered shirt and turned away from me.
I didn’t push and a few moments later, I had passed out from exhaustion.
The next morning, I woke up late. The sun had already started seeping in through the cracks in the walls, but Nari was still sleeping. Mom and dad had already left. As I went over to wake her up, I saw her bare neck and the upper part of her chest over her shirt. At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at. It looked like she was wearing some kind of strange necklace. I leaned over to take a closer look, and in shock, I had to put my hand over my mouth to block a scream. Around her neck was a severe lumpy rash - worse than anything I had seen before. It was dark red with large white skin flakes in a perfect ring formation. I also noticed dark circles forming around her eyes, though still not as severe as those around her neck. Without thinking, I pulled down Nari’s shirt to see better. That woke her up instantly, and with a loud shriek, she pushed me off her so unexpectedly I tumbled to the ground. She looked at me with petrified eyes and pulled her shirt up to cover her chest and neck.
“What is that?” I pointed a trembling finger at her neck.
“It’s nothing,” Nari grunted and immediately got up to serve the breakfast soup dad had left us.
“You need to go and get that checked out,” I continued staring at her after receiving my lukewarm bowl.
“It’s nothing,” Nari repeated, averting her rapidly blinking eyes. “Everybody has it around here… just leave it alone.”
I knew it was pointless to argue when she was like this, but I continued watching her from the opposite side of the dying ember that sizzled under the metal tripod between us. Multiple scenarios of what might happen if I took her to the constantly drunk Doctor Death rushed through my mind and I finally came to an unpleasant conclusion.
“We have to take you to Mrs. Choy,” I said. It was not a suggestion.
“Have you lost your mind?” Nari gasped. “You know that’s not possible… mom will kill us. Or maybe Mrs. Choy will…”
“Mom doesn’t have to know,” I stood my ground. “Anyway, the fight is between the two of them. I’m sure Mrs. Choy still thinks of you as a second daughter… and I know Mina still considers you her sister… If nothing else, I’m sure she can convince her.”
Nari shook her head vigorously with tears streaming down her grief-stricken face. I knew her struggle all-too well. She could never go against mom’s will… and some things never change.
“Just leave it alone, Areum,” she implored, but I knew what I needed to do.
When we emerged into the busy street, I noticed it had rained during the night. But looking up at the sky, there was not a cloud in sight. The humidity was on the rise.
Perfect… another day in the steam room…
Nari kept to herself in the fields and kept pulling her shirt up to cover her neck. I spotted Jun Ha cutting down cornstalks a bit further away and remembered him saying we could come to him with anything… and it was not like I had a whole lot of other options lying around. I worked myself closer to him slowly enough so it wouldn’t arise suspicion.
“What’s up, Miss Kim?” he greeted merrily as always. He looked like working under the burning sun in a prison camp cornfield didn’t bother him the slightest… it was almost like he enjoyed it.
I sat down next to him and started breaking off corncobs from a stalk he had just cut down, gathering them in a pile on the ground. I cleared my throat and signaled for him to come closer. I was afraid of saying what I needed to say, and even more afraid of hearing the answer. Seeing my flickering eyes, his expression changed.
“What is it, Areum? What’s wrong?” he whispered.
“Jun Ha… something is happening to Nari. She’s got a huge red skin rash around her neck.”
The last remnants of Jun Ha’s smile disappeared instantly.
“Is it… circle-shaped?”
“Yes,” I said with an ominous feeling in my gut. “And it’s full of white flakes. It has started around her eyes as well.” I swallowed. “I’ve seen a lot of prisoners with a similar rash but never as bad as this… do you know what it is?”
He sighed, looking down at the ground.
“That’s the first symptom of pellagra. It’s a sickness caused by not getting enough nutrition. And you’re right… most people here get it sooner or
later.”
“The first symptom?” I swallowed. “What comes… after?”
He bit his lip, debating with himself whether he should tell me the truth or not. Finally, he nodded to himself.
“You get swellings… all over your body… then your hair and teeth start falling out… you start getting confused or agitated like you’re losing your mind… which you, in the end, do… and then finally—”
“Death?”
“Death,” he confirmed in a whisper.
“Oh, Great General… I need to save her,” I jumped to my feet in a panic. “I need to… I need to get her some more food. I need to catch some frogs, or… or rats… or something.”
I started frantically look at the ground around us as if another meaty toad magically would appear out of nowhere.
“Or… corn! We’re surrounded by corn… salvation is right here!”
“Calm down,” Jun Ha took a firm grip around my shoulders. He looked around to make sure no one else was within hearing range. “First of all, be very careful what you say… or you’ll end up in the Center of Truth before the day is over. Secondly, corn will not do her any good… it doesn’t have the nutrient that can make her better. I’m sure of that because even before when the rations were much bigger, people still got pellagra… it’s because all we’re were eating is corn and cabbage. To get better, she will need something else.”
“How about rice?” I stared at him imploringly.
“Rice will work, yes,” he nodded.
For a split second, I was relieved thinking of the treasure under our floorboards, but then my memory returned, hitting me like a sledgehammer. I got lightheaded and had to sit down in the dirt.
Why didn’t we hide the rice better…?
I leaned over and hugged my legs, resting my head on my knees.
Could it have been Mrs. Choy who stole the rice? Am I bringing Nari to get help from the person who destroyed what little life we had left here?
The Weeping Masses: A Young Adult Dystopian Survival Saga (Juche - Part 3) Page 24
