by Hyeonseo Lee
Whenever people asked when I would marry, I got into the habit of saying: ‘Never. It’s not important to me.’
Chapter 25
The men from the South
In January 2001, two sleek young men came into the restaurant at lunchtime. They were friendly and asked me about Shenyang. They had perfect teeth, I noticed.
That day we were short-staffed so I was waiting tables. I was laying out banchan dishes in front of them when one of them spoke in a low voice.
‘You wouldn’t know any North Koreans, would you?’
I avoided their eyes. ‘Why do you want to know?’
They put their business cards on the table and told me they were filmmakers from one of South Korea’s main television stations.
‘We’re making a documentary,’ one of them said. ‘We want to find a North Korean defector trying to reach South Korea. We’ll pay the brokers’ fees to make sure they get there, and any other expenses.’
I was taken aback. The North and the South were mortal enemies. The Korean War had ended in 1953 with a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. The two countries were still at war.
‘How can a North Korean go to South Korea?’ I said. This was the first I’d heard of such a thing.
‘Many come these days,’ the man said.
I told them I’d ask around. I walked away intrigued.
Am I the one you’re looking for?
Each day the two men came in for lunch. I was seriously considering telling them my secret, but my instinct was urging extreme caution. This could be a trap. Before I did anything rash I needed some facts. I told Ji-woo, my dorm friend, what the South Koreans had said to me, sounding as casual as I could. What she said in response came as a massive surprise. South Korea considered all North Koreans to be South Korean citizens, she said. Any who succeeded in reaching Seoul were given a South Korean passport and quite a large allowance to help them resettle.
This got me thinking. I knew from my uncle and aunt that South Korea was not the ‘hell on earth’ portrayed by the Party’s propaganda. My uncle had visited the South on business and told me it was even richer and freer than China. I thought he was exaggerating. In truth I had given very little thought to South Korea. I had been so focused on learning Mandarin that I had not even watched South Korean soap operas on the cable channels. I also still believed that the North’s problems were all down to the Yankee-backed UN sanctions. Going to pro-Yankee South Korea would be a betrayal of my own country, wouldn’t it? What’s more, I remembered that on the rare occasions someone had defected to North Korea, the Party propagandists had held a press conference. If I defected to the South, wouldn’t I have to do the same, in front of a bank of microphones and flashing cameras? That could get my family into terrible trouble.
I was still undecided when, after a week, the two South Koreans stopped coming to the restaurant. They must have found what they were looking for.
Uncle Opium had once told me you get three chances in life. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had just let a major one go flying past my ears.
That evening I went on a night out with the dorm girls. We ate skewered lamb from a market food stall, then went to a café for bubble-milk tea. The girls chatted about their private lives, family worries, boyfriend problems. Each one of them wanted a better life. One of them, a Korean-Chinese girl from Yanbian, gave me a sideways look and said: ‘You never say much about yourself. You’re not an orphan, are you?’
For months I had dreaded the curiosity of others, but after the missed opportunity with the filmmakers I was feeling reckless. It was my extreme caution that had caused me to miss the chance. I was sick of lying.
‘No, not an orphan,’ I said. I had a habit of pausing before I spoke, to give myself a second to weigh the consequences. This time I came straight out with it. ‘I’m from North Korea.’
The girls looked at each other. Ji-woo, the most savvy of the group, said she’d had no idea. Suddenly they were intensely interested. So I told them my story. We were in the café until closing time.
For the first time I became curious about other fugitive North Koreans in Shenyang. So many were in hiding that every few months the police launched a city-wide sweep to catch them and send them back. At a birthday party for one of the waitresses, I heard a girl whose Mandarin was so halting that I guessed she was North Korean. I introduced myself. Gradually and discreetly, I got to know several other North Korean girls, all of them, like me, hiding in plain sight.
The girl I’d met at the birthday party was called Soo-jin. She had the oval face, large eyes and full, bow-shaped red lips considered very beautiful in North Korea. She too was a waitress. I began to enjoy long chats with her on the phone once or twice a week. She was living in Shenyang with her South Korean boyfriend. Living with a South Korean boyfriend. I was scandalized when she told me that, and thrilled.
But after a few weeks her calls suddenly stopped. When I called her phone, I got a number discontinued tone. I sensed disaster in it.
Six months later I thought I spotted Soo-jin in the street in Koreatown after dark, but I wasn’t sure. I called her name, and a face turned toward me with a hunted look, like an animal caught ferreting in trash. It was her. Her features had grown thin and drawn. I could see her shoulder bones poking through her T-shirt.
Far from being happy to see me, her eyes were darting about, as if she thought she was being followed. She said the police had come to her apartment and asked for her ID. She didn’t have one. They arrested her and processed her at the Xita Road Police Station, then deported her back to North Korea. She was imprisoned for three months in a Bowibu holding camp. Hygiene was non-existent and each meal consisted of ten kernels of corn. New arrivals quickly contracted diarrhoea, which, with starvation rations, killed many in a matter of days.
On her release she was made to sign a document vowing never to escape again. She knew that if she was caught a second time, she would not survive the punishment. Scars from kicks and beatings were livid on her legs. She said that China was too dangerous for her now. She was determined to get to South Korea.
Soo-jin was desperate to keep a low profile. She was convinced that she had been betrayed by a mutual North Korean friend of ours in Shenyang called Choon-hi, who she believed had been let off by the Chinese police in exchange for becoming an informer.
Soo-jin squeezed my hand. ‘Soon-hyang, be careful.’
I watched her go. I never saw her again.
What Soo-jin told me spooked me and made me paranoid about informers. How many knew I was North Korean? I kept going over and over this. Whom had I told?
Even then, I didn’t see disaster coming.
A week later, the receptionist at the restaurant called my cellphone at about ten in the morning. It was my day off and I was in the dormitory. Two good-looking young men were in the restaurant, she said, sounding upbeat. ‘They’ve asked for you by name.’
My heart leapt. No one ever asked for me by name, but I had given my name to the two South Korean filmmakers.
‘Ask them to wait,’ I said. ‘I’ll be right there.’
I put on some makeup, and rushed to the restaurant.
At that time of morning there were few customers. The receptionist pointed to a table. Two men I did not recognize stood up.
‘Soon-hyang?’ one of them said.
‘Yes.’
They opened their jackets to reveal their warrant badges.
‘Police. You’re coming with us.’
Chapter 26
Interrogation
The two plainclothes officers escorted me outside to an unmarked BMW. I felt hazily detached from reality, as if this were some bad daydream. They did not cuff me. They seemed relaxed, as if they’d done this many times. One of them was extraordinarily handsome I noticed, like a movie actor. A third man was sitting in the driver’s seat. I sat between the two men in the back.
‘Where are we going?’ I said.
The handsome one answered. �
��Xita Road Station.’
The car’s air con was chilling me. My teeth began to chatter. It’s over, I thought. There was no possible way out of this.
As we sped through the familiar streets of Xita I thought of the awful trouble my family would be in once the Bowibu found out I’d been in China. It was my mother and Min-ho I was fearful for, not for myself.
I deserved this. I had done this to myself.
I linked my fingers in my lap, and for the first time in my life, I prayed. I belonged to no faith, so I prayed to the spirits of my ancestors. If this is another nightmare, let me wake up. I prayed to the spirit of my dear father. If you can, please help me now.
The car pulled over in front of the station. The officers walked either side of me into a reception area lit by fluorescent lighting. It was busy, with people in uniform and civilian clothes coming and going. To the left I saw what looked like a temporary holding cell with floor-to-ceiling bars. At least thirty people were crammed into the space, leaning against the wall or sitting on the floor. Men and women together, silent, with blank, resigned faces. Some of them were very thin. They stared at me. They looked North Korean. I felt no pity for them. I felt nothing.
In a few minutes I’ll be joining you.
We passed a desk where a one- or two-month-old baby lay wrapped in a blanket. It was crying, and unattended.
My legs turned to straw. The two policemen led me upstairs.
On the second floor, we entered a large, bright conference room. Twenty or so police officers in pale-blue shirts stood about, leaning against the wall. All watched me as I came in. The handsome officer politely offered me a chair facing a desk, then sat behind it between two other male officials. The scene was surreal, and like a dream. Relaxed, yet menacing.
The handsome officer introduced himself as Inspector Xu. He was to be my interrogator. It was happening here. I was surrounded.
Focus, I told myself. Pay attention only to what is crucial – the three men behind the desk. Forget the others watching me.
Inspector Xu was not the only one asking the questions. The other two also took turns to interrogate me in Mandarin.
What is your family name? Where were you born? Your parents’ names? Their occupations? Their precise address? The names of your siblings?
I told them I was the daughter of Uncle Jung-gil and Aunt Sang-hee in Shenyang and gave all their details.
‘I need your family’s home phone number,’ one of the officials said.
Sirens went off in my head. I could not risk them phoning my uncle and aunt.
‘We don’t have one now. My parents cancelled it because they’re staying in South Korea for a while.’
Which elementary school did you attend? What was the headmaster’s name?
My mind dredged up every shred of information I could recall from conversations with Geun-soo and his sisters about their schooling in Shenyang.
Your secondary school? Which one?
My heart was beating wildly but I forced myself to remain calm. My body went into a kind of emergency operating mode. It was almost as if I was not there.
They’re watching to see if I’m lying. Don’t show them. Speak clearly and with confidence. Nervousness began to show in my fingers. I was clutching my hands together in my lap. They would notice that. I stilled my fingers.
Back to your parents. What is your father’s date of birth? Your mother’s? And then, casually, as if asking the day of the week: ‘When is Kim Il-sung’s birthday?’
April 15th. A question any North Korean could answer without thinking. ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ I said.
The questioning moved on to a new phase. Inspector Xu asked me when I would get married. I thought there might be a trap in the question.
‘Not for ten years yet,’ I said. My laugh sounded fake. ‘I’m too young.’
The police standing behind me observed the whole scene in silence. No one came into the room; no one left.
Inspector Xu was watching me carefully, twirling his pen in his fingers.
Next he slid a copy of the Shenyang Daily across the desk, and told me to start reading the first article. It was about a traffic pile-up on the Shen-Da Expressway.
By this time, my Mandarin sounded natural. I was fairly sure that I spoke without a trace of a North Korean accent.
After a minute or two, he said: ‘Enough.’
I noticed that so far nobody had entered any of the answers I had given into the computer on the desk.
They’ve got doubts. They think I may be Chinese.
Next was a written test in Chinese. One of the interrogators dictated from the newspaper, and stood behind me as I wrote down his words.
When I’d done that one of them said: ‘Where’s your ID?’
‘It’s at home.’ When Geun-soo had shown me the ID card his family had made for me, I had memorized the ID number. I gave it to them. The ID system was still paper-based. Checking the number would require a call to another station, which would have to retrieve a file.
If they think I’m North Korean, they’ll start checking properly now. Then that’s the end.
Instead, the atmosphere in the room lightened. The suspicion was draining from their faces. Inspector Xu smiled for the first time. ‘So, when are you really getting married?’
I laughed again. ‘When the best offer comes along.’
One of the interrogators flipped his notebook shut. I heard him say to the other: ‘False report.’
So, someone had reported me.
Inspector Xu stood up. ‘You’re free to go,’ he said with a sweep of his arm toward the door. ‘Sorry to take up your time. We had to follow procedure.’
I walked to the door in a daze, under the eyes of all the police in the room, and just like in a dream, I expected to hear: ‘Ah, one last thing …’
The door closed behind me. I rushed down the stairs, across the reception area, and past the holding cell. I could not bear to look at the people locked in there.
I walked out into the sunshine and the bustle of the street. Once I was several blocks away from the station I slowed and stopped for a minute on the sidewalk. It was a clear, warm morning. Business was carrying on as usual in Xita. Pedestrians flowed around me. I looked up. An airplane was tracing its way across the blue, like a tiny silver minnow.
Thank you, my dear father, with all my heart. Thank you for making me study Chinese for all that time at school.
Chinese characters take years to master. That final test had dispelled the last doubts in their minds.
My father had saved me.
I knew now that time was running out for me in Shenyang. I could not stay. It was too dangerous. Until I figured out where to go, I would hide. I would move out of the dorm. But to where? Nowhere in the city was safe from the police.
As I walked my relief began turning into depression. I was already hiding beneath so many lies that I hardly knew who I was any more. I was becoming a non-person. The experience I’d just had was deeply dehumanizing. A police bureaucracy, with its correct procedures and trick questions, and inspectors in pressed shirts, thought it reasonable and right to send people from my country to a Bowibu torture cell for beatings with wire cables.
I clasped my hands to my head. How could I have been so stupid, telling anyone I was from North Korea? Now I had no one I could trust. And nowhere I could feel protected.
The moment I thought that, an idea occurred to me.
If the net for catching escaped North Koreans was cast from the Xita Road Police Station, then I would move right next to it. No one would imagine that a fugitive would live next to the very place where the round-ups were planned. The darkest spot is right beneath the candle.
A few days later I rented a one-room apartment next door to the Xita Road Police Station. In fact, the distance from the entrance of my new apartment building to the station was about five steps. From my window, I could see some of the police from the interrogation room coming and going in their
dark-blue uniforms. I was so close that I figured they wouldn’t bother with my block, even on one of their most thorough round-ups.
Two weeks after I had moved there, I was returning home after a long day at the restaurant. I was so tired it was an effort to climb the stairs. I felt in the bottom of my bag for the keys to my door. The stairwell had no light.
Suddenly I heard the sound of a rapid movement in the darkness to my left, as if something were rushing toward me. Before I could react, a massive blow struck the back of my head. The explosion in my ears stunned my brain.
My vision went blank, then I blacked out.
Chapter 27
The plan
I opened my eyes to a diffuse white light. I was lying on my side on a bed. Pain pulsed from the back of my head. I felt nauseous. A soft-spoken female voice asked me to look at her. I turned my eyes slightly and saw a lady in a green surgical mask. The gash in my head required ten stitches, she said. I was being given an anaesthetic and would be going under for about half an hour.
If I don’t wake up no one will know who I am, I thought.
The girl with many names and no identity.
My eyes began to droop.
It was a couple of days before I could piece together what had happened. My neighbour in the apartment block had heard a noise in the stairwell. She found me lying on the concrete floor. A widening pool of blood was flowing from the back of my skull. The attacker had smashed a full one-litre beer bottle over my head and had run off.
Someone had been waiting for me in the dark, intending to attack me with such violence that the blow might have been fatal. Whoever it was didn’t take my wallet, or the keys out of my hand to rob my apartment.
I had been very lucky that my attacker had not drunk the beer first, the hospital staff said. The glass of an empty bottle would have done far more damage. They urged me to report to the police as soon as possible. I said I would, but I had no intention of talking to the police.
