In the Shadow of the Sun

by Anne Sibley O'Brien

  The next thing she noticed was how cold she was. Limb-shaking, teeth-chattering cold. Like she couldn’t ever get warm again.

  It was light. She gazed up at scraps of clouds against a deep blue sky, covering the sun, then revealing it. The grass-covered patch was surrounded by a thick tangle of bushes, small trees, and brush. Mia examined them, wondering if any parts of the plants were edible. She thought she could eat bark if it would quiet the gnawing in her stomach.

  Where was Simon? He must be nearby, scouting. He wouldn’t have left her.

  She pushed herself to her feet. She felt sore all over, like she’d been hit by a truck. She couldn’t imagine walking another half mile, much less the miles and miles they’d walked the night before.

  Where was Simon?

  Her teeth were chattering hard enough to hear. She tried jumping up and down a little to get her circulation going, but it jarred her aching body. She began circling the little enclosure. She twisted slowly from side to side and bent over to try to touch her toes, stiff muscles resisting.

  Where was Simon?

  Panic surged through her. She’d been awake more than ten minutes. Maybe he lost his way back to their spot. She had no idea how long he’d been gone. Maybe she should go looking for him. But if she left this spot, he might come back. They could lose each other completely.

  She pounded the ground around the circle. Breathing, breathing to keep her fear down. Twenty minutes, then twenty-five. Where could he be?

  Sticks cracked as something made its way through the brush toward her. She started to call out, then stopped. It might not be Simon.

  But over the top of the thicket, there was the black cap, bobbing. When Simon pushed through the bushes into the circle, Mia threw her arms around him and burst into tears. He stiffened and stepped back a little. She clung to him.

  “You were gone so long! I thought something had happened to you!” Sobs racked her body, feeling as if they were cracking her back. She was crying like a little kid, even though there wasn’t anything to cry about.

  Simon stood still. He was probably hating this, but she couldn’t stop. Then she felt her brother’s arms come around her.

  “Sorry, Squeak. I didn’t mean to scare you. I didn’t think you’d wake up for ages.” He patted her back. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

  Gradually, the storm passed. She kept her head on Simon’s chest. Then she pulled away, looking down at the ground.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I don’t know…. I didn’t mean….”

  “Don’t sweat it. It’s one of the symptoms of not having had anything to eat in twenty-four hours.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I was scouting around, trying to get a sense of where we were. And see if I could find any food. No luck. But there’s no sign of any people, so I think we can risk a small fire to get warm.”

  He made her take a swig of water so she wouldn’t get dehydrated, and eat two of the six remaining Starbursts, to get a little sugar into her system. Mia squatted by the fire he was building, chewing slowly, feeling the sweetness fill her mouth and trickle down her throat. As the flames flickered, catching on the pile of dry leaves and twigs, she held her hands over them. The warmth began to thaw her fingers.

  “Now we wait until it’s dark,” he said. “We need a distraction. Let’s work on my Korean.”

  Concentrating actually helped a little. The voice in her brain screaming Food! quieted a bit when she thought about something else.

  She turned her left side to the fire as she held up the flash cards for Simon. Bit by bit her clenched muscles relaxed in the warmth. She curled as close to the flames as she could without burning herself.

  Through the afternoon she dozed by the fire, eyes flickering open to see Simon napping, then tending the fire, then napping some more.

  She woke again near dusk. Her brother’s dark form was bent over, smothering the smoldering ashes.

  The bushes rustled, the unmistakable sound of something moving toward them. They froze. The sound came closer.

  “Simon?” Mia whispered. He put a finger to his mouth, then signaled with his hand for her to stay put. The curl of smoke rose into the air. A signal announcing their location.

  A figure — a man in dark clothing — broke through the brush into the circle and halted. He saw them.

  In the half-light the man’s face registered astonishment. His eyes ping-ponged back and forth from Simon’s face to Mia’s. The three of them stared at one another, an image frozen by the pause button.

  A giant alarm was blaring in Mia’s brain. The phone. They needed to hide the phone.

  The man was thin and wiry, his hair in a buzz cut. He wore a padded jacket made of coarse brown fabric. Not a smooth city guy. Not a government agent.

  Mia pulled herself up and gave a polite bow.

  “An-nyung ha-shim-ni-ka.” She gestured to herself and Simon. “Mia. Simon.”

  The man put out his hand, vigorously shaking each of theirs. “Ah, hallo, hallo. Mis-tah Shin.” He gestured to himself. He seemed completely delighted to have discovered them, as if having foreigners turn up like aliens from outer space was something he’d been hoping for. He clearly knew a little English.

  Mia said, “Sinuiju ka-yo. Ki-cha-yuk ka-yo.”

  “Ahh. You go Sinuiju, you go train station. Very good.” His English was strongly accented, but she could understand him. And he’d understood her. Nothing about the encounter seemed to puzzle or distress him. He spoke some rapid phrases and beckoned, motioning back in the direction from which he’d appeared.

  “You come. Come my house.”

  Mia looked at Simon.

  “What else are we gonna do?” he said. “Run? The happier he is with us, the less likely he is to turn us in.”

  Mia picked up her pack. She was too tired and hungry to care whether or not it was safe. “I just hope he takes us somewhere with food.”

  Simon finished stomping out the fire.

  They followed Mr. Shin through the twilight, on hard-packed dirt paths running along the ridges of a range of hills. Mia saw Simon looking around, probably keeping track of where they were in relation to the road, just as she was doing.

  It was completely dark by the time they came to a wall and a cluster of roofs, barely visible in the gloom. Mr. Shin led them through a gate into a courtyard ringed by several buildings with white walls and tile roofs. The light spilling from the house fell on a large motor scooter standing in a corner against one wall.

  The man called out. Mia flinched. But it was a gray-haired woman in an apron who appeared in the lit doorway. The man spoke to her, gesturing at his surprise guests. The one phrase Mia understood was “weh-gook sa-ram.” Foreigners.

  The grandmother’s face registered amazed delight as she took in Simon’s face and, as he pulled off his hat, his blond hair. She motioned with her hands and made coaxing sounds, beckoning them to enter the home.

  “Take your shoes off,” Mia whispered to Simon. They stepped up into a concrete entryway, following the woman down a hallway to a room with a floor covered in oiled yellow paper. The usual portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il hung high on one wall.

  The floor was warm under their sock feet. The grandmother pulled out large square cushions in a bright orange print and patted them, smiling at Mia and Simon. They sank to the floor on the cushions. The woman left, closing the sliding door behind her.

  Mia and Simon turned to each other.

  “Where did Mr. Shin go?” Mia asked warily.

  “It could be a trap.” Simon shrugged. “But I don’t know what choice we have.”

  Dishes clinked in the next room. Then the door slid open and the grandmother carried in a little wooden table, placing it on the floor in front of them. Mia’s mouth dropped open.

  “There’s so much food!” Large metal bowls of rice and soup and small ones of side dishes. Everything was colorful and fragrant and fresh.

  “Amazing.” Simon spoke in an under
tone. They both continued to smile and nod at the woman.

  At that moment, their host entered the room. “Okay, okay! You eat! Very good!”

  He sat down to share the meal. The grandmother — his mother, Mia guessed — sat a little ways away, watching. It felt weird, but she beamed and nodded at them, clearly expecting them to eat without her. Mia hoped she’d eat later.

  The food tasted even better than it looked. The rice — a mixture of white grains and barley, studded with black beans — was steaming and moist, clinging in clumps that made it easy to lift with chopsticks. Pieces of tofu and vegetables floated in the soup’s deeply flavored broth. The small bowls held chunks of potatoes seasoned with soy sauce, two kinds of kimchi, and tiny hard brown beans with a sweet coating — soybeans, Mia thought. It was really just a simple vegetarian meal. But to her eyes, tongue, and belly it was a feast out of a dream. She almost didn’t care if someone was coming to take them away, as long as they could finish eating first.

  When they’d eaten all they could hold, the woman cleared the table. Mr. Shin left the room behind her.

  Simon leaned back against the wall. “I’m trying to figure out if we should get him to take us back to the road now, so we can cover some distance while it’s still dark. Problem is, we can’t walk all the way to the border before light, and then where would we hide till dark?”

  “We might be safer here. Maybe Mr. Shin can help us get to Sinuiju. If we’re with him, we might not stand out as much. And once we get to the city, we’ll look like a tourist and a guide. Tourists come over from Dandong all the time.”

  Simon nodded. “We also don’t want to seem too eager to leave, as if we have something to hide.” Footsteps sounded in the hallway. He opened his hands as if he was resigned to whatever happened.

  Now that Mia was full, she could feel all her muscles on alert, tuning in to the slightest sound and movement. They were so vulnerable here. If their hosts knew what was hidden on the phone, how would they react?

  Mr. Shin moved through the doorway to a tall wooden cabinet standing in one corner. Inside, folded bedding was stacked, white covers bordering bright blue, yellow, and green quilts. Reaching to a high shelf, he pulled down a small black television, set it on the floor, and plugged it into a wall socket. As they watched, wide-eyed, he took out a DVD player and attached all the wires. He turned, smiling.

  “Okay, okay, we see video. Very good!” He held out a DVD. Mia and Simon exchanged looks.

  The final surprise came when Mr. Shin fiddled with the remote until he produced English subtitles. He beamed at them. “English! Very good!” The grandmother joined them as the movie began.

  “It’s a South Korean movie!” Mia tried to keep the astonishment out of her voice. “I thought everything like that was forbidden here.”

  “Maybe, this close to the border, with black markets and all, it’s hard to control.”

  They were sitting in a North Korean home with North Korean citizens, watching a DVD of a romance set in South Korea, under the watchful eyes of the Great Leader and the Dear Leader. All of them — Mr. Shin and his mother included — could be arrested for this. Mia’s eyes were fastened to the images and words on the TV screen. But her ears scanned for any sounds from the courtyard. From time to time Simon glanced toward the door.

  “Doesn’t seem likely that he’d report us,” Mia whispered. “Not while he’s playing a South Korean DVD.”

  When she could concentrate on it, Mia found herself loving the movie, the wonderful novelty of having all the parts — heroine, hero, antagonists, background characters — played by actors whose faces had features like hers. A whole world of Koreanness.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t know about Korean dramas; at Korean school, the other kids — those real Korean kids who had matching parents and already knew how to speak the language — gossiped about K-drama actors and K-pop stars as if they were friends of theirs. Mia had always felt impossibly out of it. She’d tried to look some stuff up online, to watch some dramas and music videos, but she couldn’t figure out where to start. Watching this film, she realized how much she’d been missing. When she got home, she resolved that she’d ask someone at Korean school for a recommendation. There should definitely be more K-drama in her future.

  When the movie ended, the man gestured to the bedding in the cabinet.

  “You sleep. Tomorrow we go Sinuiju. I drive.” He jiggled his hands and made a thrumming noise. “Very good!”

  “He’s going to drive us.” Mia felt a fierce longing to just be comfortable for a little while. A warm, soft place to sleep. Maybe another hot meal. Imagine not having to walk the last twenty-five or thirty miles.

  “I don’t know what else we can do,” Simon whispered. “It’s not as if we’d be safer if we left. If someone’s coming, they’d still be able to find us. We just have to hope this guy means well.”

  Just as they got the quilts laid out on the floor, the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling went out. Mia jumped.

  “Probably a power outage,” Simon said. “It’s like an enforced ‘lights out.’ ”

  After a moment, the darkness actually felt like a relief. If someone came, they might have a tiny chance of escaping.

  The grandmother brought a candle and directed Mia to the bathroom, handing her some folded clothes. She pointed to a yellow metal basin of warm water next to a drain in the tile floor. Then she slid the door closed behind her, leaving Mia alone in the flickering light.

  The entire room was tiled. Mia squatted by the basin to wash and shampoo her hair. A thin little striped towel hung on a hook on the wall, the only thing she could find for drying herself off. She dressed in the grandmother’s baggy, quilted gray cotton top and pants, like a pair of long underwear.

  Standing to replace the towel, she caught her reflection in a square frame of mirror. The face that gazed back at her in the candlelight belonged to a stranger. Mia pulled her wet hair behind her ears and studied herself. There were smudges under her eyes and hollows in her cheekbones. Behind the shelf of her eyelids, back in the shadows, she saw something. There was someone there. Someone alive and vivid and free. A creature who wasn’t contained by any of the ways she thought of herself. Not Korean or American. Not nice or self-centered. Not a sister or a daughter. Just … more. It was her, but bigger. Peering out through the mask of her face.

  Hi, there. I see you.

  The moment passed, and it was just herself, Mia, looking back.

  Back in the single room, all four of them lay down on the thick cotton mats on the warm floor, heavy quilts over them. It felt weird to be lying in bed next to strangers. Mia wondered if she’d make funny noises in her sleep. But it was sublime to be lying on a soft padded surface. To be warm. To have a full belly.

  If she’d been born in a Korean village way out in the country, to parents who could care for her, maybe this is what her life might have been like.

  But no Dad. No Mom. No Simon.

  Without them, she wouldn’t be who she was.

  OCTOBER 10

  A rooster crowed in the still-dark morning. Next to the quilts, their clothes lay neatly folded, clean and stiff. The grandmother must have washed them in the night and dried them on the heated floor. Or else she had North Korean elves as helpers.

  By the time Simon and Mia had each dressed in the bathroom, she was carrying in another meal. Rice with a fried egg on top. Soup and side dishes. Heaven.

  Out in the courtyard, they found Mr. Shin attaching a sidecar to his motorcycle. He pointed to Mia, then to the sidecar.

  “You sit!”

  The air was brisk, an inky-blue sky overhead, pinpricked by stars. As they climbed aboard, the grandmother carried out a blue plastic sheet. She chattered animatedly to Mr. Shin, gesturing as if she were berating him. He motioned for Mia to wrap the plastic around herself. She pulled it over her shoulders like a shawl. The grandmother tucked the sheet around her.

  Mia smiled and nodded. “Why is she covering me with
a plastic sheet?”

  “’Cause it’s probably in the mid-forties,” Simon said. “As soon as this thing gets going, we’re going to freeze our butts off!”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m sitting behind the guy. He’ll be my wind block.”

  Mr. Shin was pulling on gloves and a hat, zipping up the collar of his jacket. At that moment there was a ringing sound. Mia froze. Mr. Shin put a hand in his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. Mia and Simon exchanged glances as their host put the phone up to his ear and began to talk.

  “I just hope the call isn’t about us,” Simon said under his breath.

  As Mr. Shin returned the phone to his pocket, his mother called and gestured for him to wait. She came back with her arms full: a black fake leather jacket that she insisted Simon put on, and packages of snacks and bottles of water she pressed into the corners of the sidecar. They bowed their thanks over and over.

  As the motorbike putted out the gate, the grandmother followed them to the edge of the courtyard, waving. Mia kept her eyes on her until they turned the corner.

  The beam of the bike headlight on the hard-packed dirt was the only light in the black landscape. They turned onto a wider alley that ran between other walled homes, then onto a paved street. The engine revved louder and settled to a hum.

  As they picked up speed, the wind rose, cutting like a knife. Mia shivered and pulled the plastic sheet closer. The wind kept finding holes to sneak into with its freezing fingers. Finally, she pulled the sheet up over her head and wrapped it tightly around herself, with only her eyes exposed. She was cold, but at least the plastic cut the wind’s bite.

  She focused on how much ground they were covering. Imagined having to walk it, step by tired step.

  To their right, the deep navy of the sky was lightening to blue. Dawn coming on. Soon they were passing silhouettes of houses. Then big blocky towers, the buildings closer and closer together.

  The highway sign said Tongrim. Mia tried to picture the map. If she remembered right, Tongrim was only about twenty miles from Sinuiju. They were so close. They could soon be in China, calling Mom. Possibly even this very day. But first they had to get through Sinuiju, and somehow, across the border.