All Woman and Springtime Read online

  Gingerly, she withdrew a new pair of sheer, white nylon stockings from the cellophane. They had been wrapped around a piece of cardboard to preserve their shape in the package. They were smooth and pristine, never before worn. She slipped a hand into one of them, pulling the stitched toe over her fingertips, careful not to snag any threads on her fingernails. The fabric was cool on her skin. It had been several years since she had had new stockings.

  She brought her hand up to her face so that she could feel the virgin cloth on her cheeks and across her lips. The mistress ached to be a woman—she so often felt like a machine. There was something suggestive about the gift, more intimate than the hand mirror he had brought the week before, or the hair clip several weeks before that. It was as if, when she wore the stockings, he too would be sheathing her feet, her calves, her knees. What would it feel like inside the stockings, his hands sliding over her legs?

  THE GIFTS WERE a recent development in the boxes delivered by the young man. The first one she had found in the rice when she was unpacking the box. It was small, and wrapped in a ragged, old piece of newspaper. She pulled back the wrapping to discover a fancy hair clip tucked inside, made of polished wood with an ornate leaf pattern carved into it. It was held together with a strong spring and looked new. She fished in the box for a note, or some indication that the young man had intended it for her; that it had not accidentally fallen into the box on its way to some other, less featureless girl. There was no note, so she looked more closely at the wrapping. It was randomly and raggedly torn, with no apparent hidden message in its clipped content. Looking more closely, she realized that it was from no ordinary Chosun newspaper. In fact, it was not Chosun at all. It was clearly Hanguk, being torn from the middle of an article about an art installation in Seoul. It was pedestrian, commonplace, exotic, and, best of all, illegal. Potentially lethal. She smoothed the wrinkles out of the paper and hid it within the pages of her Bible.

  The next time the young man came, she made a point of wearing the hair clip and showing a lot of profile in hopes that he would see it on her and mention it, or at least confirm in some way that it was truly meant for her. He said nothing, and so, in frustration, neither did she. That same day, however, there was another small package in the box. This time it was a music box that played an unfamiliar tune when its lid was lifted. The mistress realized that this was more than a coincidence, that these presents were clearly left for her.

  Almost every week since then there had been something, some small token, left for her. In her entire life she had never felt so real.

  15

  IT WAS LATE AT night and Foreman Hwang was sitting in his office, poring over papers at a scratched old desk, a dim electric bulb above casting a small circle of light around him. The factory was otherwise dark and empty. Three loud bangs rang out from the large metal loading-dock doors. The foreman looked up at a clock on the wall. Ten-thirty. The boy was always punctual.

  He rose painfully from his chair and limped the length of the factory to the loading dock. He lifted the rusty bar off the doors and opened one of them a crack. The faint light coming across the factory through his office door was barely enough to illuminate the face of the man standing outside. He was young and full faced, and wearing a strange foreign cap. If this boy was not so bloody useful, the foreman thought, I would love to hit him across the face with a board. That would wipe off his insubordinate grin.

  “Do you have something for me?” The foreman’s voice sounded like dry leaves crumbling together, which made the young man feel like swallowing.

  “I do, if you are still able to do something for me,” came the reply.

  “Have I ever let you down, you disrespectful little shit?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I have half a mind to turn you in just to watch you be shot.”

  “But before they shoot me, I will have told them all about you, you dirty pervert.”

  The foreman looked as if he had been slapped.

  “Relax, old man. I may be many things, but a rat isn’t one of them.”

  “You’re a lowlife and a criminal.”

  “But I also have what you want.” The young man produced a brown paper bag and handed it to him. The foreman took it quickly and held it behind the door. He unfolded the top of the bag and looked inside: two large bottles and a bundle of magazines. He felt a wave of gratitude for the young man.

  “Don’t let me down, Colonel. I’m going to need your help soon.”

  “Everything is already prepared.”

  16

  IL-SUN WAITED FOR GYONG-HO’S breathing to become deep and regular. It always took so long for her to get to sleep, and tonight it seemed that she would never settle down. Gi tossed back and forth on her sleeping mat. Several times she inhaled sharply as if she were about to speak, but then said nothing. Il-sun had the sense that she was chewing on some kind of an explanation or apology but could not find the right words to begin; and she hoped that Gi would not find them. She did not want to talk about it. It was painful to be so near her internal struggle and yet not be able to offer help. The problem was that Gi wanted something that Il-sun could not provide: more closeness, when Il-sun was needing more space. Lately Gyong-ho seemed so . . . childish, clinging with ever greater tenacity to the games and play of girlhood, just as Il-sun was trying to shed them to be more womanly. She was embarrassed now to be seen with Gyong-ho, who was so awkward and insular.

  Il-sun rolled over, turning her back to her friend, and feigned sleep. She was just able to shake herself awake before slipping from consciousness. The pull of dreams had almost drawn her under—she was so tired lately. Gyong-ho’s breathing was now heavy and rhythmic, so Il-sun shed her blanket and sat up on her mat. She had laid out her clothes next to her sleeping mat in such a way that she could dress without fumbling in the dark. There was not even a hint of moonlight, and the room was in absolute darkness. She wished that she had better clothes; her nicest outfit was her factory uniform, which she donned with a grimace. If only her mother had not died.

  She began tiptoeing toward the stairs. Just as she was starting to believe she had made a clean getaway, she stumbled loudly on a pile of books one of the girls kept near her mat.

  “Il-sun?” Gi cut the darkness with a loud whisper.

  “I’m just going to the latrine, Gi. Go back to sleep.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I told you, to the latrine. I’ll be right back.”

  “You’re going to meet him again, aren’t you?”

  “Shhhhhhh! I just told you, I’m only going to the toilette. Now go to sleep!”

  “Il-sun—”

  “Shhhh! I’ll see you in the morning.” With that she turned and made her way to the stairs. She descended them in twos, making an effort to miss the squeakier steps. She felt a moment of pride for having had the guile to plot the quietest route the day before. There was a certain thrill in doing what was forbidden. She had left her sneakers in the corner of the foyer at the bottom of the stairs so that she could easily find them, and sat on the floor to put them on. When she stood back up, she found herself facing the portrait of the Dear Leader. She could only barely make out the edges of the frame, but his image was already burned so deeply into her mind that her eyes did not need light to see it. Without thinking, by some latent reflex emboldened by the near perfect darkness, she formed a ball of saliva in her mouth and spit upward at the photograph. She felt a moment of tickled delight, knowing that she had just defiled the most sacred of images and that no one had seen her commit the crime. She stared into the blackness at the point where she knew the eyes to be and spit again. And again. She stood there for a moment, reeling in the power of what she had done.

  Then, quite suddenly, the impact of her actions hit her full force. She felt her chest tighten and the air squeeze out of her lungs. She could not draw a breath, no matter how hard she tried. Even though she did not much believe in the Dear Leader, he still exerted power over he
r life. Suffocating, she reached upward to the photograph, barely able to reach it with her sleeve, and wiped the glass. She could feel the cool dampness of the saliva as it soaked through her shirt in spots—her aim had been true. She sucked at the air in tiny gasps as she polished the glass. I’m not good enough, she thought. It was a meaningless, superstitious incantation, but it had the power to loosen the death grip on her lungs. She hoped from the depth of her soul that the glass would not be smeared. There would be an investigation for sure if it were.

  Il-sun took two steps back, her breath slowly returning to normal, and thought about the man she was going now to see. He was not the perfect man, but the only one who could, now, elevate her station in life. If her mother had not died, Il-sun would, no doubt, be courted by a handsome young Party official—a man working his way up the ranks, destined for success, and competing for her affection. He would arrive at the apartment, nervous, smelling of precious aftershave in a flawlessly pressed uniform. He would make a show of politeness and generosity to Mother, who would size him up and giggle girlishly—courting the daughter is also about courting the mother. Mother would bring out the best kimchee for him, and serve steaming pork while subtly mining him for information about his family history. A girl married the history as much as she did the man.

  That life, that songbun, was over for her now. As an orphan she needed a strategy. She did not want to spend the rest of her days slowly becoming arthritic at the garment factory. Her new man did not have good songbun or Party clout, but had built a life for himself all the same. With him she could, at least, rise above her station. What did it matter if some would call it unrespectable?

  Il-sun turned to the door, unlocked it, and stole into the night.

  17

  HER HANDS TRACED OVER another package. How she had come to live for these moments, these points of lonely intimacy. The mistress feared that she may be neglecting the girls, letting things slide, but she could not stop thinking about the young man.

  The wrapping fell to the floor, and she felt a lurch in her lower abdomen, her womb, a kind of contraction. She inhaled sharply. She was not sure how to feel. A line of propriety had been crossed and she should be offended. But, oh yes, how she wanted him to cross it. In her hands she was holding barely anything at all—it was what was not there that created its implicit scandal, and there was so much of them that was not there. She held them to her face, smoothing the scant lace across her cheeks and lips, her closed eyes: red panties and bra the color of ripe apple.

  Watching in the mirror, she pulled her blouse over her head and stepped out of her ankle-length skirt. Her drab and gray underwear looked like hunger, and she cast it off. Naked now, she saw her outlaw body. All the curves and crevices that make a woman were there.

  Sitting on a stool, she rolled a new white stocking over her foot and up her calf. And then the other one. She slid the new panties over her ankles and up to her waist, admiring how the delicate fabric drew attention to her intimate mounds and valleys. The waistband was little more than a string around her waist. The lacy fabric down the front formed a V that fit perfectly inside the lines of her inner thighs. Only partly concealed by the matrix of the lace was the triangle of swirling dark hair leading to the hill of her pubis and the folds of her vulva. This partial concealment was intoxicating. She fastened the brassiere around her chest, her breasts not quite filling the cups. It was a garment that was made to be seen by others; but having no one, she looked again in the mirror to see herself. This underwear looked like hunger too, but of a different kind.

  Seeing herself this way, she had a sense of invulnerability. This woman could stop all fear and hunger and death; she could stop fate itself. She lay down on her sleeping mat. Using the hand mirror that the young man had given her, she watched as she allowed her fingers to trace the outline of her panties. The light touch caused a shiver to roll through her. She imagined that her fingers were the fingers of the young man exploring her body for the first time, and her eyes were his eyes watching her. Fingertips followed bones and tendons and sensitized lines where light flesh meets dark flesh. With her fingers she indulged in the power of her building desire, purposefully avoiding her most sensitive places even though they throbbed in anguish to be touched. She breathed her sweet and musky smell and imagined how the young man’s scent would mix with her own. She was no stranger to her own pleasure, having touched herself many times before, but never had she so thoroughly drawn it out as if she were the lover touching her.

  Her breath was ragged and heavy, and her heart beat strongly. Blood flushed the surface of her skin. She brought herself to the very brink of release and hovered there. She basked in the raw power of the moment, savoring the interplay of control and the uncontrollable. How would the young man be in moments such as this? Would he rush to the finish, or draw back from the edge? Could he stay, unmoving, supercharged, with her?

  Her breath wound down slowly, and the thin film of perspiration covering her body evaporated as her skin cooled down. Her heartbeat returned to normal, but she did not. Something had changed inside her. She brought her hand to her face, and delighted in the texture of her own skin. She was made of flesh and blood.

  18

  THE DAYS AT THE camp began before sunrise and ended long after sunset. It was a constant blur of reeducation classes, labor and longing for food, water and nurturing. Gyong-ho was taught that her parents had strayed from the path of good and deserved to be punished for their transgressions. By association, she herself had been stained by impure imperialist ways and needed to work doubly hard to prove herself worthy of living in the Worker’s Paradise. The Dear Leader loved her, in spite of her shamefulness; and, as his child, it was her duty to honor him by confessing the misdeeds of her relatives and friends.

  From day to day the tasks of her labor changed. Commonly she was given the job of finding firewood, or working on the prison’s farm. There was also a small factory at the camp that produced items for export to China, though Gyong-ho never knew what they were. When she worked there, her job had been to stamp out small, meaningless steel pieces using a hydraulic press. She was grateful that she was too young to work in the mine. The adults, when she saw them, were broken and blackened with soot. She thought of her father and ached for him. Could the earth digest an innocent man and turn him into stone? She was expected to prove herself by working tirelessly and mutely, with only the vague promise that one day a higher power might deem her worthy of reentering Chosun society.

  Verbal self-flagellation was an integral part of her training. Gi was required to stand in front of her class each day and tell everyone the ways she had failed to match up to the Chosun ideal and what she would do the next day to be better. She was encouraged to devise punishments for herself. Failing that, the group would decide on the best punishment for her. Sometimes it was to clean latrines or to skip meals. Lighter punishments involved cleaning dormitories or writing repetitious lines about fealty to the Dear Leader. Beatings, isolation, and torture were part of the standard repertoire of punishments used by the prison guards.

  Less common were rewards for model behavior. This usually involved the honor of reading the words of Kim Il-sung aloud during reeducation, or sometimes an extra ration of food. These rewards most often followed a confession implicating a family member or friend in antirevolutionary activity and were doled out with much fanfare.

  In the fervor to become worthy Chosun citizens, the children often looked for ways to rat each other out. It was common for a child, taken up in the excitement of her devotion to the Dear Leader, to express some imagined or exaggerated transgression on the part of another child. The hope of reward, especially that of extra food, ensured that this happened with regularity. Some children learned that they could trick the more gullible of their peers into making transgressions that they could later report. Gi fell into that trap several times in her first few weeks in the gulag.

  There was no one she could trust, and nobody to look aft
er her.

  19

  THE FOREMAN STOOD IN front of the busy seamstresses, scowling. The joints of his damaged leg were aching with particular vengeance. There must be a storm coming, he thought. He was a man who made use of his pain. Many other men would have become lesser people, useless and whining. Instead, he used it to propel himself forward, to make himself stronger. The Great Leader would have approved. The problem with people today, he thought, is that they are out of touch with the war. The Great Leader would never have let that happen.

  He was not sure which was more painful, standing in one place or walking, so he alternated between the two. They each hurt differently, he decided. He paced the room, randomly inspecting the work of the seamstresses. “Your seams aren’t straight enough, Comrade Kim!” he barked at a cowering young woman. “Comrade Ho! You’re wasting fabric,” he scolded another. Yes, these women have not seen enough war, he agreed with himself.

  Foreman Hwang was a bitter man. He had been born with excellent songbun, but now look at him! Relegated to the impotent task of managing a bunch of snotty girls who knew nothing of real sacrifice and loyalty. His father had been a decorated veteran of the war against the imperialists: He had killed Americans and lost an arm. He had met the Great Leader, who pinned a medal on his lapel and called him a true son of the Republic. His father had earned his privilege—a high standing in the Party, a spacious apartment in the center of town, a television set. That is the way to respect loyalty. That should have been my birthright, coming from such pure stock. The new guard doesn’t understand what makes a man a man. Today it all goes to sycophants and liars. Twenty years ago I would have been elevated for my sacrifice, but now they just push me aside.