All Woman and Springtime Page 5

  “A concerned citizen has reported that your loyalty to the state is in question. Upon inspection, we have found that you have failed to properly maintain the portraits of the Great Leader, Kim Il-sung, and his honorable son, the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il. You have failed to care properly for the icons representing the juche ideal. There is dust on the tops of the frames, and the portraits are not level. Your neglect indicates your lack of fealty and suggests that you are in danger of becoming involved in seditious activity. You are all hereby under arrest for failing to pay proper respect to the authority of the state.”

  Mother gasped and Grandmother lowered her head.

  “You are to be immediately removed from your home and taken to prison to await trial.”

  “I have neglected my duties as homemaker,” Mother pleaded. “Please don’t make my family suffer for my unworthiness. Take me but leave my family!”

  “No! I’m to blame, as the head of this household,” Father tried to bargain.

  “It is not only the portraits. There are other charges against you, which you will learn about at your trial. We reserve the right to detain three generations for transgressions such as this. I see three generations here. You all must go.”

  “No!” Father shouted. “We work very hard for the glory of our Dear Leader. We attend meetings with our work units daily. My mother takes care of our home. Look at her eyes. She can barely see! She gets confused sometimes. Please give us a chance.”

  “You are still found wanting. You can give the circumstances of your case at your trial. They may see fit to be lenient with you, but that is not my decision.”

  “No, please!” Father begged. One of the soldiers hit him hard across the face with the butt of his rifle. Blood rushed from his nose and he whimpered. Mother cried. They were led to a truck outside and never saw their home again.

  9

  WITHIN A WEEK AFTER the mistress first met with him, Father Lee came to the back door of the orphanage with a large box of food. That was nearly six years ago. It contained mostly rice and beans, as well as forged ration coupons and some soap. It was not a lot of food, considering the many girls she was responsible for feeding, but, along with her state rations, it would keep them from starving. The mistress offered him tea, so as not to seem ungrateful or rude, but she hoped he would decline. Receiving illicit goods was grounds for imprisonment, and she did not want to be caught accepting them or fraternizing with a Christian. To her frustration, he accepted.

  Every layer of Chosun society was organized and stratified. The inminbanjang was a neighborhood watcher, of sorts, who was responsible for keeping tabs on the coming and going of her neighbors. She was expected to report anyone in her district who engaged in suspicious activity or failed to participate in social events. The orphanage was considered its own independent district, and by default the mistress was made inminbanjang. Technically, the inminbanjang was supposed to attend extra meetings and training, but that would have meant the mistress’s superiors having to stand in for her at the orphanage. For her they waived the requirement.

  Being the inminbanjang meant that the mistress was beyond scrutiny from below; and because her superiors preferred to ignore her, she was practically invisible from above. It seemed that there was a tiny hole in juche itself in which she fit perfectly, obscured from the eyes of the Republic that otherwise could see everywhere. Still, the presence of Father Lee, who was intent on lingering, made the mistress nervous.

  “I cannot thank you enough for giving this food to us,” she said, impatience pushing at the restraint in her throat.

  “Thank our savior, not me,” he replied unctuously. “Have you been praying to him?”

  “Every day,” she lied.

  “Good. Have you had a chance to read from the Bible?”

  “I have, a little.” This time she was telling the truth. Reading it was tempting, because of how dangerous it was. When she read it she felt like she was examining a relic from an alien world. She had not been given much room to contemplate life or history outside of Chosun. Now here, laid out before her, was a whole new history, none of which remotely involved Chosun. The Great Leader was not even a minor character in the stories of the Bible.

  “Very good! It pleases me to spread the word of God.” He held his smile a little too long. The mistress had a feeling that he wanted something. “I would like to meet some of the girls here,” he blurted after an uncomfortable silence. “I would like to tell them of the wonders of Jesus Christ.”

  The mistress blanched. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” she said. It was one thing for her to keep the illegal activity secret, but to expect children to remain quiet about it was asking too much.

  “But don’t you want God’s precious little ones to know the truth? I would hate to have to discontinue food deliveries. There are so many deserving Christians who could use the help.”

  The mistress suddenly boiled inside. He was trying to manipulate her through her desperation only to gain more converts to his dangerous ideology. Did he think that this was a game? These were children, and this could kill them! She wanted to lift him by the lapels of his threadbare shirt and toss him into the mud on the street. But she was desperate, and he had proved that he had the means to help. She forced a veneer of self-control and tried a diplomatic approach.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea. You know as well as I do just how dangerous your . . . our . . . practices are. I cannot in good conscience endanger the lives of the girls in my care. I doubt that Jesus would want that.” She monitored his face for his reaction, but it was hard to read. “Here’s what I propose: I’ll read the Bible on my own and pass the teachings of Christ on to the girls, but I’ll say that they are conventional wisdom, or even the wisdom of Kim Il-sung, without mentioning their true origin. That way, the girls get the teachings without being put into harm’s way. If the Dear Leader ever decides to soften his position on Christianity, then we can talk to them more openly about it. That seems fair, considering the charity. You can still send the food, knowing that the teachings of Christ are being taught to them.”

  Father Lee looked doubtful. He seemed about to refuse, so she cut him off.

  “If you won’t send the food, then I will publicly renounce Jesus Christ.” She said it threateningly, her eyes wide and her nostrils flared.

  Father Lee looked at the mistress in an appraising way. He understood her veiled meaning. She may be plain, but she’s certainly not short of wit, he thought. He realized that he was in a perilous situation: The mistress could, out of spite, turn him over to the authorities, who would waste no time making a public example out of him. He imagined his trial and his martyrdom. And then the pain. He would surely be subjected to horrible, horrible pain. His facial tic began to work double-time. A dark cloud passed through his eyes.

  “Very well, you will receive your food.” With that he turned on his heel and marched out the door.

  FOOD DELIVERIES CONTINUED with surprising regularity over the next six years. In a country where most of the infrastructure had shut down, the black market moved with punctual regularity. Father Lee often made the deliveries himself, but sometimes they were brought by other members of his organization. The mistress never asked too many details, but received the goods with much gratitude.

  It took several weeks, but Father Lee eventually recovered from the humiliation of the first contentious delivery. He even humbled himself and became a welcome visitor at the orphanage. He would engage the mistress in conversations about what she had read in the Bible. She enjoyed the stimulation, even if she did not share his zeal for the subject. She could not blame him for wanting so desperately to share his belief with others. Everyone needed to believe in something in such a dark time. Also, being denied faith by the government only made people hold their faith more dear. For his sake, she pretended to go along, and out of self-preservation he never challenged her.

  The Bible, however, she cherished. It turned her into an unlikel
y criminal: a renegade with the power to poison the minds of the youth with imperialist dogma. Just the awareness that she could do it gave her a sense of power over the establishment, which claimed absolute authority. When she was not reading it, she would hide it behind a loose wall board in her bedroom. Knowing the danger that it could be found by the roving hands of a naughty orphan, or by the police during one of their random midnight inspections, was a brisk stimulant that lifted her above despair.

  10

  THE MOON CRACKLED AND hissed as it slid across the sky. It was the sound of the moon, as much as its brightness, that kept Gi from being able to close her eyes and go to sleep. She kept replaying in her mind the details of Il-sun’s illicit adventure.

  What was it about Il-sun that made her so compelling to people? She was certainly pretty—there was no doubt about that—but it seemed like there had to be more to it. It wasn’t just the lush outline of her lips or the shininess of her hair, or even the fullness of her breasts. It was the way she was always reaching forward with her lips, tossing her hair casually into the light. It was the way she looked at people from the corners of her eyes while cocking her head modestly, the way she walked as if the very act was causing her pleasure. It was not the parts that made up Il-sun that captured their attention, but the way the parts worked together—the rhythm of her actions, the fluidity of her gestures, the alluring promise in her eyes coupled with the scorn of her shoulder as she turned away—that drew people to her. It seemed that the secret to Il-sun was her embodied contradictions, how she simultaneously teased and rejected; and this manipulation seemed to come naturally to her, as if from some innate womanly knowledge that Gi did not possess.

  Gi imagined the scene of the night before: the man putting his arms around Il-sun. She must have felt soft to his firm touch. The newness of her body, so different from his own, must have sparked a curiosity in him. Perhaps he was trying to solve for himself the mystery of her contradictions. Maybe, as the moonlight reflected off her lips, they looked like ripe berries, and he wondered if they might taste red and sugared. Her smell was naturally sweet, and maybe this compelled him; so he put his lips to hers and kissed her, hoping to taste berries.

  Gi looked over at the sleeping form of Il-sun. It was not uncommon on cold nights for them to keep warm together in the same bed. She slid from her own sleeping mat and got under the covers next to her. Gi pressed the front of her body into the back of Il-sun’s, allowing her warmth to penetrate below the skin. She inhaled her familiar smell and was suddenly jealous that the man would also know this intimate detail. Il-sun had been her only friend for nearly four years, and she did not like the idea of anyone coming between them. Gi put her arm around her and brought her face to the very back of her neck, where long, wispy hairs made two trails up to the base of her skull. Her skin was soft and redolent of sweet rice.

  Il-sun shifted in her sleep, turning until she was almost flat on her back. Gi lifted a leg over her, to take in more of her warmth, and the soft sensitivity between her legs made contact with Il-sun’s hip. An unexpected flood of tingling spread throughout her body, warm and electric. It was wonderful. As soon as she felt it, she was parched for that sensation, as if she had become aware of a thirst that had always been there and she had just now found the well. She ground herself more firmly onto Il-sun’s hip, heightening the sensation. Satisfying the urge to press down, however, only increased her desire to press more. Gi did not understand what was happening to her, or why she was doing it, but the compulsion was overwhelming. She was afraid of waking Il-sun, but she also did not want to stop—this was intimacy unlike any she had ever experienced. If she pressed hard enough for long enough, would she merge completely into Il-sun?

  She had a feeling that Il-sun would not approve of what she was doing. It seemed to cross a line that had the power to redefine their friendship, but Gi had no explanation of what that line might be. The prospect of rejection was frightening. Even so, she continued doing it, charging toward an unknown goal.

  She once again imagined the man’s hands exploring Il-sun’s body, and found herself doing the same. Her hand slid up Il-sun’s belly over her nightshirt until she found the rise of her breast. She had never felt another woman’s breast before. Her own were underdeveloped, and Il-sun’s were a pleasant contrast. She gently cupped the breast, feeling its weighty softness. She could feel Il-sun’s heartbeat, slow and steady, so unlike her own. She could feel her friend’s nipple between her thumb and index finger, and she squeezed softly. Il-sun took in a sharp breath as her nipple stiffened in response to the touch.

  “Gi, what are you doing?” Sleep was thick in Il-sun’s voice.

  Gi froze in place, as if by not moving she could deny being there at all.

  “Gi?”

  “I’m sorry. I was just trying to warm up.” There was silence for a whole minute and neither girl moved.

  “I don’t think we should sleep in the same bed anymore,” said Il-sun, finally.

  “I’m sorry,” Gi responded, removing her hand from her friend’s body. Il-sun pretended not to notice.

  “I mean, we aren’t little girls anymore. We’ll be moving out of here soon. We’re practically women now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gyong-ho repeated, unpeeling herself from Il-sun and slinking back to her own mat. She caved in on herself, embarrassed. Before her eyes could fill with tears her head was full of numbers. By the time daylight broke through the dirty windowpanes, the numbers in her head were very large, indeed.

  11

  THE MISTRESS SAT, GAZING at the back door. She knew there would not be a delivery for several more days, but still she watched the door longingly. Impatiently. How was it that she had come to be this distracted? She had for so long dedicated her life to others, and now she needed a pursuit that was all her own. She had witnessed so much sorrow and despair, and now she knew that those were in infinite supply—what little comfort she could provide, these days, seemed so meaningless.

  It started when Father Lee began having trouble with his suppliers. His shipments had been so regular over the past several years that the mistress had nearly forgotten that the goods arrived at great peril to the bearers. Father Lee explained that the secret route across the border had been compromised, and several of his flock were lost to the labor camps, along with the officials who had been bribed to look the other way. He assured the mistress that he and his contacts would find another supplier soon—he had already been put in contact with a prominent dealer on the black market; she shouldn’t lose hope. That was three months ago.

  The following month was very lean at the orphanage. The state ration distribution system was working better than it did a few years earlier, but it was still not enough. The mistress and the girls had so far been spared having to hike out of the city in search of tree bark and edible mushrooms, or taking the grave risk of stealing corn from the state-run farms, as many people had to do. Now, perhaps, their luck had run out.

  But then the young man arrived, and now the mistress could think of little else. She replayed the meeting over and over in her memory, to fill the space between his visits.

  THERE WAS A knock at the back door. A knock could mean so many things, and the mistress tensed. It was the middle of the day and all the girls were either in school or working; she was alone in the kitchen. She opened the door to see a man in his midtwenties leaning against a post and smoking a foreign cigarette with a filtered end. He smoked it as if he were the one smoldering, not the cigarette. His posture showed a studied tough-guy attitude: button-down shirt carelessly untucked, shirtsleeves rolled up, a faded blue newsboy cap cocked at a no-nonsense angle, the brim partly concealing his eyes. His stance, leaning as he was, was a dare to anyone who might have the nerve to ask him to move. He was average in height, but solidly built, with firm muscles, a strong, square jaw, and long limbs that tapered elegantly to agile hands and feet. His gaze bored into her with animal intensity, and she flushed. With an unconscious flutter of h
er hands, she checked the buttons of her blouse to make sure she had not accidentally answered the door bare-breasted. He blew smoke from the corner of his mouth with practiced nonchalance. There was a large box at his feet.

  The mistress was speechless for a moment as she took in the young man in front of her. He was not the typical sort that Father Lee employed to make deliveries. In fact, he was not a typical sort at all. His manner of dress was precariously individualistic, a badge of danger in a society where people try very hard not to be noticed. Perhaps because there were few men in her limited social orbit, and even fewer attractive ones, she found herself looking at him with hungry eyes. His youth, his fullness and firmness, and his cocksure attitude cracked her defensive barriers. She had not felt attracted to a man in many years, which is perhaps why she fell for him so suddenly. He was an outward expression of who she was inside, a renegade standing against the current of their severely homogenized culture. And, perhaps, she had never felt this kind of attraction before. It was so instant, and so . . . physical—made all the more taut by the fact that she was older than he. Seeing him reminded her of every one of her long, chaste years.