In the Shadow of the Sun

by Anne Sibley O'Brien

  A naked doll in the mud. No, a baby. Dead.

  Mia closed the game and stared at the home screen, one hand clamped over her mouth.

  Simon came walking around the side of the bus. Mia leaped to her feet, then stopped. She returned the phone to her backpack pocket and left her pack on the bench. She didn’t want anyone near it. Crossing the parking lot toward the bus, she forced herself not to run.

  “I need you to see something.” She lowered her voice for only Simon to hear. She could barely get the words out. “Over there.” She gestured toward the grove of trees.

  “What is it, Squeak?” He looked annoyed.

  “I can’t — just come.” He started to protest. She turned to him. He caught her expression, let out a sigh, and followed her.

  She pulled out her guidebook first. “Hold this and pretend we’re looking at it,” she said. “Turn around so no one can see.” He frowned. “Simon, please!”

  Back at the bus, none of the guides was in sight and no one was looking their way. Mia pulled out the phone, feeling as if she was holding a ticking bomb, touched the game icon, and handed the phone to Simon.

  “What … the … ?!” His eyes widened and his forehead twisted. Then his mouth dropped open. His fingers jabbed at the screen. “Mia, what the hell —” He sounded furious.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know. It was in the gift they gave us yesterday. I opened it this morning and there was a wooden box, and it had this phone inside it! I knew I couldn’t use it here, but I tried turning it on and it was already charged. And it had Angry Birds on it. I was just playing a game and” — she gulped a breath — “these popped up.” Her voice was ragged, near tears.

  Someone called out. They both flinched, their heads snapping toward the sound. Some of the tour group members were moving across the parking lot to the bus.

  “We gotta get someplace safer,” Simon said, eyes scanning. “Behind the restrooms.” He folded the guidebook around the phone and started off. Mia grabbed her pack and followed him.

  As they crossed the pavement, Mia looked for Dad. There he was, over by the bus, talking to Mr. Kim. Or rather, Mr. Kim was talking to him, looking agitated. They couldn’t risk calling to him while the guides were around.

  The area behind the restrooms was completely out of sight from where the bus was parked. They’d be hidden, at least for a few minutes. Simon handed the guidebook back to her and squatted against the wall, his finger moving across the screen of the phone. Mia glanced down as she tucked the guidebook into her pack, squinting her eyes as if to protect herself from what she’d see. There were more photos. Ragged people standing in long lines, their faces hollowed like Holocaust survivors. Men staggering through the rain, bent under huge loads. Another dead baby. Mia heard herself whimper.

  “These … are messed up!” Simon sounded stunned. “It looks like the kind of things that Dad says happen in the prison camps. But I never heard of there being any photographs from the camps….”

  “How did they get in the phone?” Her voice sounded high and scared, like a little girl’s.

  “Somebody put them there. It had to be on purpose.” Simon slumped back against the wall as if exhausted. “So we have a major problem.”

  “Do they … do the North Koreans know … about the phone? That the photos are on it?”

  “Well, someone knows, whoever put them on the phone knows. But we have no idea who that might be.” Simon ran one hand through his hair. Took a breath. He gestured with the phone. “If these are actual photos of actual starvation and torture and executions in actual prison camps — that according to the North Korean government don’t exist — then these images are toxic.”

  Mia gulped. “Dad talked about that guy who they said had a CD with photos of starving children, remember? He got sentenced to hard labor.”

  “If we get caught with these images …” The knowledge was breaking across Simon’s face, changing his expression. “If we get caught with these, there’s no way we’re getting out of this country.”

  A violent shiver went through Mia’s body. It felt as if everything was hurtling around her, like she was a balloon full of air that someone had just untied. This is what came of breaking the rules. She never should have opened the phone.

  “But — but can’t we just throw the phone away? Like bury it right here —”

  Simon frowned, concentrating and talking fast. “If we could hide it so that none of the wrong people would find it, but where the right people could come back for it … Whatever we do, we have to do it immediately. They’ll be looking for us soon.”

  Mia pressed her fist to her mouth.

  Simon slipped around the side of the building and leaned to peer around the corner. His body tensed. Mia ran to look over his shoulder.

  Dad and Mr. Kim stood midway across the parking lot, Mr. Lee and Miss Cho just behind them. Dad was leaning toward Mr. Kim, gesturing fiercely with his hands. Back at the bus, the entire tour group — including Daniel — stood in a cluster, watching.

  “Dad’s upset,” Mia said. Their father never got angry.

  A black car careened into the far end of the lot. It sped toward the group in the center, screeching to a halt, the doors flying open. Four soldiers spilled out and sprinted toward Dad and the guides.

  The soldiers took hold of Dad’s arms and began to walk him back toward the black car.

  “Simon!” Mia grabbed his shoulder.

  “They’re taking him,” Simon said, his voice cracking.

  The knot of men, with Dad in the center, paused as they neared the bus. Daniel stepped forward. He spoke, then nodded at something Dad said. The soldiers continued their march, pulling Dad with them.

  At the car, they pushed Dad into the backseat, one of the soldiers holding his head down, just like on TV cop shows. The doors closed. The black car circled forward and swept out of the parking lot.

  Mia and Simon turned to look at each other. Simon’s eyes were wide, his mouth open.

  “What the — ?” He shook his head. “What was that?”

  Mia pressed her clenched fists against her cheeks. They were in North Korea and soldiers had just taken Dad away.

  “We definitely can’t go back to the group, not now.” Simon swiveled in his crouched position, looking behind them. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  Mia stared at him. “Get out of here? But Dad —”

  His head swung back. “Squeak, if we don’t get away, they’ll arrest us too.”

  “But we have to help Dad!” She had to work to keep her voice steady. “If we give them the phone, they’ll let him go.”

  “Mia, think! If we give them this phone, the photos will be used as evidence against Dad. Maybe that’s even why someone gave the phone to us, so Dad would get caught with the photos!” His voice cracked again. He was scared. Simon was scared.

  Mia shook her head, forced the panic down. “We can dig a hole, bury the phone, then go back to the bus.”

  Simon stood and stepped toward her. “Don’t be an idiot. They’ll be looking for us any second. We can’t hide the phone here; they’ll be sure to find it. Someone knows we have the phone with those photos on it. Getting found with it would be the worst thing that could happen to Dad.” He was talking fast. “And we can’t go back. They just took Dad away. You’ve heard his stories: When they arrest people, they take their relatives too, send whole families to prison camps. When they execute people, they kill everyone, down to their grandchildren!”

  Mia inhaled fast through her nose, eyes wide. Dad —

  Simon tipped his head back and huffed out. “Okay, they don’t kill Americans. But we could be held for ages.” He glanced back toward the bus. “We have to go now. We’ve got to get behind that line of trees before anybody finds us.”

  He pointed behind them. The trees looked impossibly far away.

  Mia grabbed Simon’s arm to keep him from moving. “Simon! We can’t run away in North Korea! There’s no way to hide here. E
veryone will report us! And we’ll only get Dad in worse trouble!”

  He shrugged her off. “Listen! I don’t have time to argue with you! We’ve got to get these pictures out of here now, to protect Dad. If we get away, maybe there’ll be a way to hide the phone.” He gestured toward the trees again. “You go back if you want, but I’m taking the phone that way.”

  Mia looked back at the bus. She couldn’t see Daniel. A wave of nausea flooded her gut. She turned around, and Simon was no longer behind her. He had already started off, crawling low across the ground.

  She could follow or be left behind.

  Feeling as if she was being ripped in two, Mia dropped to her belly in the dry grass. Using her elbows and knees to propel herself, she slithered forward. The shoulder straps of her backpack snagged between her chest and the ground. She had to keep stopping to pull them free. She kept repeating Simon’s phrase in her mind. To protect Dad.

  She raised her head to see Simon disappearing behind the trees. She was alone, out in the open. The soldiers might come back. They could shoot her. Another wave of nausea and panic hit. She started forward again.

  Finally, she was slinking between the trees and collapsing on the ground. She propped herself up against a tree trunk with her head back. Her breath came in gasps, as if she’d run for miles.

  Simon was looking out through the trees on the far side of the grove. He was back before she’d caught her breath.

  “I think we can get down to the street from here. There are stairs. I don’t think they can be seen from the parking lot.”

  Mia just stared at him, too winded to speak.

  “C’mon, hurry.”

  “I can’t,” she moaned.

  “No choice, Squeak. Unless you want to get arrested. This place will be crawling with soldiers any minute.”

  Every part of her protesting, she dragged herself to her feet.

  No one was in sight as they crossed the lawn. “We have to look normal now,” Simon said, “not attract suspicion.”

  Right. Two young Americans alone in the middle of North Korea. They might as well have had flashing neon arrows pointing at them.

  They started down the wide stone steps.

  At that moment, from behind them, someone spoke. Mia froze and felt Simon stiffen beside her. They were caught, not even halfway down the stairs.

  Then, through the haze of her terror, she noticed the tone of the voice. An ordinary conversation. No one yelling a Korean version of “Halt, or I’ll shoot!”

  Mia stole a glance back over her shoulder. A couple — a man in a dark suit and a woman in a yellow han-bok — was heading down toward the landing on which she and Simon had paused.

  “Simon?” Mia’s voice wavered.

  “Just look out at the city. Look like tourists.”

  Trees. Buildings. Blue sky. She tried to focus her attention, to look like she was just gazing at the panorama below them.

  The couple’s voices came closer. The voices stopped. Mia’s stomach fluttered. Don’t look at them.

  “What a nice view.” Simon made words, ordinary words, come out of his mouth. He had one arm up, pointing. “This is a beautiful area, isn’t it?”

  The couple passed them, heads craning back for one last glimpse … of Simon. The blond foreigner. They turned away quickly, good DPRK citizens with no interest in imperialist foreigners.

  They never even glanced at Mia.

  When the couple was out of earshot, she let her breath whoosh out. Simon was already several stairs below her. Each step felt as if she was wrestling against a force field. Leaving Dad, leaving Daniel, leaving the tour group — even leaving the guides — seemed like the worst choice in the world.

  Except that Simon’s terrible logic was convincing: It was their only choice.

  “I got a new one — a DVD!” Yoo-jin whispered as he passed Min-ho in the square that morning, moving to find their places in the neat lines of students. “After school!”

  Excitement straightened Min-ho’s back, adding an extra smartness to his step as they began the march to school. “Hold the red flag high, and solemnly vow beneath it!” he sang with gusto, conscious of gracing the passersby with his voice. Everyone always said his tone was beautiful, but he also took genuine pleasure in singing. It made him feel powerful and good and fortunate.

  After school! Min-ho carried the promise all day, like a hidden sweet in his pocket. He stood even taller when called upon, reciting the answers in a clear, strong voice and seeing the approval in his teachers’ eyes. Min-ho always imagined that the Great Leader was there, watching.

  The long wait for school to end had been eased by an afternoon field trip to Mangyongdae, a reward for the students who had scored perfect marks on their most recent exams. They’d even had a chance to practice their English with a group of American tourists in the park area. As their teachers often reminded them, skill in foreign languages was an important contribution to the socialist state.

  Now, finally, it was after school. As he did every day, Min-ho walked home with Yoo-jin, Jae-hyun, and Dong-nam. Today, the four headed for Yoo-jin’s apartment.

  “No one will be at home?” Jae-hyun asked as they neared the building. “You’re certain?”

  “No one will be home,” Yoo-jin assured him. “But even if my father discovered us watching, he would not mind. He knows I am strong, and that it is only entertainment.”

  “But Soo-im’s family …” Jae-hyun did not finish the sentence. Such things were not voiced openly, though everyone knew: Soo-im’s family had been sent away for reeducation after her brother was caught with American DVDs.

  “My father says the laws are essential for those in the lower ranks,” Min-ho said. “They are already weak, and the foreign influence might corrupt them. But for the Loyal, it is no problem.”

  “It could be useful to learn about these things,” round-faced Dong-nam added, “like … like a vaccination that … that prevents us from catching the disease of capitalism!”

  Yoo-jin nodded. “In order to maintain our status as the most powerful country in the world, we must be familiar with how things are done elsewhere. That way we will be armed and not become prey to their corrupt ways.” He sounded like one of their Juche Ethics instructors. No one said what everyone had heard, that even the Grand Marshall had a taste for foreign films and goods.

  Entering the glittering lobby of Yoo-jin’s apartment building, the boys fell silent, holding their breath with the daring of what they were about to do. As the elevator rushed to the eighteenth floor, they kept their eyes forward, just a group of students in their red scarves, white shirts, and blue pants, nothing on their minds but homework. It wasn’t until they were inside the spacious apartment, the heavy door safely locked behind them, that their suppressed energy burst out.

  “Where is it?”

  “Let’s see it, let’s see it!”

  “Yoo-jin! Put it on!”

  “Don’t you want a snack?” he teased, moving toward the kitchen. “There’s fresh rice cakes. Belgian chocolate. Even American candies!”

  The other three grabbed him and pulled him toward his bedroom, laughing. “Now!”

  Yoo-jin slid open a desk drawer and extracted a slim DVD case from beneath a stack of notebooks. He held it aloft, like a trophy. “Look at this!”

  “Big Bang?! You got Big Bang!”

  “I can’t believe it! That song just came out!”

  “This is the best! Put it on! Put it on!”

  On the TV screen, lights flashed, the crowd of fans screamed, drums and synthesizer pulsed, and there they were, all dressed in black, the five members of one of the South Korean pop world’s most sensational bands. Their eyes riveted to the image, the boys crowded close, swaying and dancing and singing along.

  “We need wheels.” Narrowing his eyes, Simon scanned the broad street in each direction. “Something to get us out of here fast, back to the city but in the opposite direction from the hotel.”

  Mia
grabbed the shoulder straps of her backpack with both hands and hung on. She closed her eyes, studying the map from her guidebook in her mind.

  “A bus. Or a streetcar. That way.” She pointed left, her raised hand shaking.

  Simon looked, then turned his head the other way, calculating his own answer. He pointed with his chin.

  “So we need to cross to the other side.” He started for the street.

  Mia grabbed his arm and yanked him back. “The underpass.” She gestured down the sidewalk. “North Koreans would never jaywalk. The traffic ladies, remember?”

  Simon frowned but fell in step beside her. In the distance, two schoolgirls in their navy uniforms approached, carrying book satchels. Beyond them were several men in dark clothes and a middle-aged woman in a bright green blouse. Any one of them could turn her and Simon in.

  Mia straightened her back, keeping her eyes focused forward. Nothing to see here. The men and the woman passed by on the sidewalk. But as Mia and Simon turned down the steps toward the underpass, the schoolgirls fell in beside them. Giggling behind their hands, the girls stared at Simon. Mia held her breath and lifted her chin, trying to look like someone who belonged here. She hoped the students didn’t have cell phones.

  They came out of the dark tunnel and climbed the steps up into the bright day. The schoolgirls turned right. Mia let out her breath.

  “There’s the bus stop.” Only two figures stood beside it, not the long line she’d seen that morning. All they had to do was get to the bus stop. One step after another. Nothing in her mind except getting to the bus stop.

  “We’re going to keep walking,” Simon said.

  “What? Why?” She started to turn her head, caught herself. Don’t look anxious.

  “We can’t just stand around on the street — anyone could see us. We’re going to walk by it, to the next stop or the one after that if we have to. Time it so that the bus comes as we get to it.”

  “But Simon, what difference does it make, if we’re standing on the sidewalk or walking down it? People can still see us.”