Star of the North

by D. B. John

  A smell of roasting turkey blanketed the small apartment. Over the cheer and oompah of the Macy’s parade on TV in the next room came the yip of her mother’s laugh, followed by the velvet bass of her uncle’s, and the chinking of glasses.

  A low sizzle emanated from the oven. Jenna dried her hands and reread the instructions for the gravy. The practicalities had in fact calmed her, restored her sense of method, given her a space to think, and she realized that she was actually glad to have the distraction of company. As the morning went on, as she basted and stuffed, chopped and mashed, she succeeded in pushing aside thoughts of the midnight phone call, and the rush of terror she’d felt was now just a trickle of anxiety.

  The banter of newly dropped male voices sounded in the yard—her cousins back from their turkey trot. Steam rose from the black frizz of their hair. Cedric and Maya’s two adolescent boys entered trailing freezing air and a tang of male sweat. “Yo, Aunty Han.” Hot plates were laid. Uncle Cedric uncorked the wine and the boys took their seats, talking across each other over the buzz of the carving knife. “One dude was dressed as Colonel Sanders. He had this rubber chicken under his arm—”

  “Are we all here?” Han said in Korean, peering through the window. “I thought I heard a car.” She’d been to the hair salon, Jenna saw, and wore a new crimson blouse, with a matching lipstick, and trimmings of gold and pearl jewelry that made her resemble some extravagant Christmas decoration. It was pathetically obvious she’d hoped Jenna was hosting the day in order to surprise them with the introduction of a man.

  “We’re all here, Omma, and we’re speaking English today.”

  Once Han had led them in saying grace, they wished each other a happy Thanksgiving. Uncle Cedric asked Jenna what was new in her life—camouflage netting, she suspected, for the man question. Aunt Maya asked about her new job.

  “I’m … working for the government.”

  “Sounds hush-hush and exciting.”

  It is exciting. For a moment Jenna smiled. Her report on the secret laboratory had made it into the president’s daily brief—the first thing he’d read with his coffee in the morning. Then her mind turned to her encounter with First Secretary Ma, whose fate she had almost certainly sealed, and the brutality of the Farm, and her smile faded.

  The boys ate their pie in front of the game, and Jenna insisted everyone relax while she cleared away. She was stacking the dishwasher when she heard the kitchen door click shut behind her. Han was facing her, leaning against the closed door.

  With ominous calm she said, “What’s wrong?”

  Her jewelry glittered and her face was partly in shadow, which gave an air of melodrama.

  “Nothing’s wrong.” Jenna began wiping surfaces. “It’s been a wonderful day.”

  “You’ve been gulping wine, which is not like you, and you’re far away. It’s like talking to someone who’s not there.”

  “Just a little tired,” she said, annoyed. Han’s sixth sense was becoming honed with age.

  Han gave a rough little shake of her head. “This is something to do with Soo-min.”

  “It’s not.” Jenna tried not to look away but her face was betraying her, and her mother’s expression registered what she saw.

  “I’m right.” Han remained motionless. Her voice was distant thunder over the ocean. “Why can’t you let your sister’s soul rest in peace?”

  “Omma,” Jenna said, knowing she was being cruel. “We all believed that drowning story but now I’m getting nearer the truth.”

  Han’s eyes flared angrily for a moment, then became magnified by tears.

  “Oh, here.” Jenna plucked at a sheet of paper towel and dried her mother’s eyes and held her small plump figure, her mom, whose tears smelt of freesias and ginger lily. “I’m sorry.” And she began to cry herself.

  Later, when it began to snow in great silent flakes, and the apartment was still and dim and Cat slunk somewhere in the shadows, Jenna sat immobile on the sofa, staring at the phone lying on the coffee table.

  The living room clock ticked remorselessly toward midnight. Midnight in DC. 1:00 p.m. tomorrow in South Korea. Just a minute to go. The lights in her apartment were off, but the living room was filled with a diffuse glow of snow reflecting in streetlights. Snow swirled and eddied, building a small drift in her yard that seemed to muffle and deaden her fear, leaving her cold and with a feeling that was something akin to hatred.

  The minute hand reached midnight. Almost robotically she picked up the phone to make the call. She had the number written down next to her, and was about to punch it in when a long ringing tone made her jump. It was coming from her laptop behind her. She stood up and stared at it as if something supernatural was materializing on her desk.

  A Skype call?

  And that’s when she remembered that she’d entered her Skype address on the application request to the South Koreans, weeks ago.

  It rang twice, three times. She sat at the desk and answered it.

  A cacophony of noise and static, from male voices talking, and a face appeared, too close to the screen. The shaven head was brutal in the gray-yellow light. A second later, her own camera connected, and the face locked into hers. The eyes had a ferocious directness. The mouth grimaced, showing canines. Behind him she could see a seated prison guard talking to another who was out of sight.

  “Who is this?” the face said, very close, his mouth filling the screen. Violence crackled about him like static. “What do you want with me?” He spoke with the strong accent of the North.

  Jenna’s throat had gone dry. She opened her mouth but her words had fled.

  “No need to hide in the shadows,” he said. “Turn a light on over there.”

  Slowly Jenna reached over, turned on her desk lamp and angled it so that it shone brightly into her face.

  She watched him squint at her for a moment and then a look of confusion spread over him, as if there had been some bizarre mistake, and recognition sparked in his eyes.

  Jenna nodded, and felt her nails making deep gouges in the seat of the chair.

  “Do you see me now?”

  22

  Hyesan Train Station

  Ryanggang Province, North Korea

  One of Kyu’s kotchebi arrived with the anemones Mrs. Moon had ordered. She arranged them in a beer bottle and placed them in the center of a table surrounded by customers, then stood back to admire them. Bright pink with flame-orange stamens, they were a burst of color.

  Kyu, watching from his perch on top of the rice sacks, tipped his head back to exhale a leisurely puff of white smoke. In a distant valley a train’s horn sounded its funeral-barge note. Midafternoon, and the day was dark already.

  Her bribe to the Bowibu had cleaned out the cooperative. The women had little money left, which would make life precarious for a while, and yet a warm humor had spread among them. They told stories that had each other weak with laughter. They made jokes about their husbands that only women could do together. Later, Kyu would fetch Sun-i from her hiding place in the bottling plant. Curly was being returned to them this evening. The flowers were for her.

  Curly was being detained at a Bowibu holding camp outside Hyesan. Kyu’s face had darkened when Mrs. Moon told him that.

  “It’s where they throw people caught running away to China,” he said. “One week in that place … no one runs again.”

  As news of Curly’s imminent release spread, people had begun greeting Mrs. Moon with a marked respect. Rumors were everywhere. One had it that a market woman had called in favors from powerful men in Pyongyang; another that she had millionaire relatives in Japan, or connections among the Chinese triads, which even the Bowibu feared. With amazement she realized that these rumors were about her.

  The rest of the day at Moon’s Korean Barbecue passed in such a frenzy of work that she had no time to think of anything but cooking and serving. Work distracted her from checking the station clock every minute and glancing about for Curly’s face. A biting easterly
began sweeping down from the Changbai Mountains. The joints in her knees were inflamed and her fingers were stiffening, but as always she waved away Kyu’s offer of the bingdu pipe.

  Grandma Whiskey, whose face was a yellow bud swaddled with scarves, announced that gas for the burner was running low, so Mrs. Moon tied her A-frame to her back and told Kyu she was heading across town to buy a canister.

  “When Curly arrives, put her next to the brazier and give her dinner.”

  As she left the market, Mrs. Moon glanced again at the station clock.

  23

  O Street

  Georgetown

  Washington, DC

  Jenna watched the confusion on the man’s face turn to disbelief. He glanced quickly over his shoulder at the two guards talking behind him, then scrambled to put on a pair of headphones and plugged them in.

  He said, “But … You’re calling from America.”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  She focused all her energy into presenting a calm expression. Her pulse was knocking against her throat.

  “I can’t talk about that. You understand.”

  He closed his eyes and nodded. “I understand.”

  His arrogance was in abeyance and Jenna saw that he was older than he’d seemed at first. The aggression of his features had delayed, for a few moments, the realization that he was at least sixty.

  The conversation paused. She felt panic again, her mind clutching for something to say without giving herself away. His narrow eyes were watching her, and she remembered a reporter’s trick. Say nothing. Let him fill the silences.

  “Forgive me,” he said, forcing a nervous smile, “I am a rough fellow. I thought you’d be another reporter snooping—” The Skype signal cut out for a second or two. “—if I’d known it was you …” He bowed his head, so that she saw the top of his goblin-like skull. Jenna’s mind was reeling, but she remained silent. She had no idea where this was going. He put his fist to his chest. “I am loyal unto the death—” The signal cut out again, and the screen froze his face in a grimace of defiance. “—want you to know that. The bastards here offered me a deal,” he said loudly and tilting his head up, so that the guards behind him could hear. “I gave them nothing.”

  Jenna shook her head, beginning to warm to her role. She marveled at the power this deception was giving her. “If you’ve betrayed anything … Do not think you are beyond reach in a prison.” His eyes glared with hurt pride. This man, she saw, was unafraid of death. She was improvising wildly now. “I have been curious about you for a long time, Sin Gwang-su.”

  “Me?”

  The signal cut out. Again his face froze, this time in surprise. The delay in reconnecting was longer this time, four or five seconds, and the pounding of Jenna’s heart grew faster.

  She said, “I owe you a debt of gratitude. For what you did, taking me from that beach. It is because of you that I have purpose, I have pride.” She emphasized the words, hoping to imbue them with meaning they didn’t have. “You seem surprised.”

  He shook his head, in admiration. “You … resisted our teachings so fiercely. You wouldn’t follow orders. I … Forgive me. Please forgive me. I know we had our differences.” He dropped his head again in respect. “I’m just so impressed. It is not always easy to change someone with the Truth.”

  Jenna felt adrenalin coursing through her. She sensed a path opening. “So … you did not know that I’d left the … facility?”

  “I knew that you’d been transferred to Section 915.”

  The receptors in her brain were sparking. The effort not to show her excitement was tremendous. She managed to shake her head gently, as if reminiscing. “Section 915 …”

  He gave a jittery laugh. “… the Seed-Bearing Program was not a project a fellow like me ever got to see, you understand.”

  “We 915 girls are an exclusive group …”

  “You earn your privileges.”

  The signal cut again, freezing an expression of awe on Sin Gwang-su’s face for two, three seconds. The signal returned. “… he has shown you great favor,” he murmured solemnly. She felt herself begin to tremble now and knew she could not maintain her composure a second longer. He said, “He made you one of the—”

  The signal died and the screen went dark. She waited a minute, feeling herself perspiring as if she’d been for a hard run, but it did not return.

  She closed the lid of the laptop. Suddenly she shot out of the chair, clutching her hands to her head.

  All her thoughts were shuffled up and scattered, like a deck of cards flung in the air. She threw open the French windows and rushed outside, desperate to cool the blaze in her mind with frigid air. She turned her face upward and breathed in. Snowflakes melted icily on her face. How could it be possible to feel such extremes of emotion at once? She had never felt such horror and excitement, such hope and despair.

  What in God’s name is the Seed-Bearing Program?

  Distantly, in another room, her phone was ringing. She ignored it. But then after a pause it rang again, and she ran to answer it.

  Fisk said, “I’m picking you up tomorrow at seven a.m.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “The CIA director wants to see us.”

  24

  Hyesan Airport

  Ryanggang Province, North Korea

  It was late afternoon when Mrs. Moon got to the depot on the far side of the city. Her contact usually rolled out the gas canister when his boss wasn’t looking and she slipped the money into his pocket, but for some reason the place was unattended. Then her eye was caught by the beam of a floodlight sweeping across the clouds from somewhere behind the depot—the airport.

  The distant rushing sound she could hear was like the sound of the river after it had rained in the mountains, until she remembered that she was quite far from the river. She turned and peered into the darkness of the road that led back into the city and realized that the sound was the murmuring and whispering of a great mass of people. It ebbed and then grew louder and then she saw it—the shadowy crowd approaching, escorted by soldiers. As they drew nearer she could make out distinct groups: factory workers in indigo overalls, construction corps wearing hard hats, city officials in their Mao suits, uniformed Socialist Youth. Tiny, blackened kotchebi were darting ahead and running about. She tightened her money belt and made sure it was zipped and hidden.

  What was going on? For minutes the huge throng walked past her. Mothers with children, market vendors, railroad workers. Then she spotted Mrs. Lee in the crowd, and Grandma Whiskey—and Kyu! Who was watching the canteen?

  A group of elegant women glided by in their long chima jeogori dresses, hostesses from some Party cadre’s restaurant, being jostled along the road, their powdered faces stiff as masks.

  The next thing she knew a soldier was shining a flashlight at her, and signaled impatiently for her to join the crowd. Then she was being herded with everyone else, moved along in a crush of bodies that was becoming denser by the minute. Everyone was being shepherded toward the airport. Voices muttered, cursed, cussed. It was as if the soldiers had rounded up everyone they’d found in the streets, and emptied the factories and shops and offices of their workers.

  A young soldier was gesturing them onward with a sweep of his rifle butt. “What’s happening?” she said.

  “People’s trial.”

  A few hundred yards ahead, between the heads of the crowd, she saw the single-story airport building with its stubby tower and a smiling portrait of the Great Leader, and the runway, lined with old propeller planes. Parked in the middle of the runway was a dark-green military jeep, on top of which were mounted two enormous floodlights. The movement of the crowd slowed and became an immobile scrimmage as a cordon of police motioned for everyone to spread out along the side of the runway, but still the crowds continued to arrive, several thousand people, so that the mass of spectators along the edge was dozens deep. The whole of Hyesan had been brought here. The smalle
st children—Young Pioneers in red neckerchiefs and ragged kotchebi—squirmed their way through to the front to claim prime positions.

  Night was falling like a cloud of ash. The only light came from the floodlights on the jeep and a small electric light above the Great Leader’s portrait. A strange, sinister tension was running through crowd. Nerves and fear mixed with the anticipated thrill of horror, as if an act were about to start. Then, in the blackness to the right, at the far end of the runway, two amber headlights came on. The truck must have been waiting there, because now it approached slowly in low gear. As it came nearer to the light, helmeted guards with submachine guns could be seen standing in the back, but it was too dark to glimpse the prisoners through the wooden slats. The wheels bounced across a crack in the concrete and a clink of chains could be heard from inside. The truck came to a halt in the focused beam of the two floodlights.

  The rear hatch dropped open and the guards jumped out. They ran behind the airport building and emerged wheeling a long, heavy wooden platform. A collective intake of air was heard from the crowd, like the breath of some powerful beast. The platform had a row of eight, evenly placed stakes, each about the height of a man, protruding from it. The guards maneuvered the platform to a right angle on the runway so that it was on the crowd’s left and facing the truck.

  The first prisoner was led out, a teenage boy who had soiled himself. His ankles were in chains and a dirty cloth blindfolded his eyes. He was whimpering softly. A few jeers went up, but most of the crowd remained silent and many, Mrs. Moon saw, were looking away. He was followed by a woman of about her own age who might have been a factory worker, and a young man and woman in good-quality clothes whom Mrs. Moon guessed were husband and wife. The husband’s cheeks were streamed with tears, but the wife’s face, what Mrs. Moon could see of it, was blue with fear. For some reason, she thought it shocking that they were wearing their own clothes, not prison uniforms. After them came a slender young woman in a headscarf, and a young soldier who’d had his insignia and stripes ripped from his uniform.