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“Oh, thank you, Comrade Yie. Thank you, you have no idea what that means to me.”
“On the contrary, I have every idea.”
He looked a bit put off by this statement but regained his composure and said, “Um, by interesting you mean…?”
“By that, Comrade, I mean someone like me.”
Chapter
50
SHE HAD EXAMINED OVER A hundred children aged four to fourteen. They all looked alike in many respects: malnourished, filthy, and blank-eyed. She spoke a few words to each of them. Their answers, when they came, were halting, inelegant, and simple. None of this was their fault, she knew.
She turned to the guard accompanying her. “How many were born here?”
He looked at her with some insolence, but had no doubt been told to cooperate fully or feel the Supreme Leader’s wrath. He gazed over the ranks of young prisoners with a lazy eye. They might as well have been chickens lined up for slaughter.
“About half,” he answered in a casual tone and then rubbed a smudge of dirt off his gun. “There were more, but they were unauthorized births, so they were of course killed along with their mothers.”
Chung-Cha knew that the children’s education, what there was of it, was totally inadequate. They had been raised as simpletons and they would perish as simpletons despite whatever belly fire they might have for something more in life. At some point, no matter the rage that dwelled within, the beatings and starvation and brainwashing that were all prevalent here would douse all hope until there was nothing left inside. She felt if she had stayed one more day in Yodok she never would have left it alive.
In the distance Chung-Cha saw a group of children laboring along under the weight of either logs or buckets she knew were filled with dung. One child stumbled and fell, dislodging the contents of her bucket. The guard accompanying the group hit her with both a stick and then the butt of his rifle, and then encouraged the other children to attack her, which they did. They had been taught that when one worker failed they would all be punished, directing their anger away from the guards, where it rightfully should be, onto one of their own.
Chung-Cha watched the beating until it stopped. She made no move to halt the attack herself. Even with the authority of the Supreme Leader riding in her pocket, she could never do such a thing and hope to avoid punishment. The rules of the camps were inviolate and certainly no one like her could intervene and break them without consequences.
But she had no desire to stop the beating. She wanted to see the result of it, because even from this distance she had noticed something that intrigued her.
The beaten child rose, wiped the blood off her face, grabbed the bucket off the ground, scooped the dung into the bucket with her bare hands, and marched past the guard and the other children who had beaten her. Her head was held high and her gaze was fixed determinedly ahead.
“Who is that prisoner?” Chung-Cha asked the guard.
He squinted in the distance and then blanched. “Her name is Min.”
“How old is she?”
The guard shrugged. “Maybe ten. Maybe younger. She is trouble.”
“Why?”
He turned and grinned at her. “She is a tough little bitch. She gets beaten and then gets up and walks off like she won a great victory. She is stupid.”
“You will bring her to me.”
The guard’s grin faded and he glanced at his watch. “She still has six hours of work to perform.”
“You will bring her to me,” said Chung-Cha again, more firmly, her gaze never leaving the man’s face.
“We heard about you here. What you did at Bukchang.” The guard said this in a surly manner, but Chung-Cha, who could sense fear from almost anyone, could see that the man was afraid of her.
“About my killing the corrupt men? Yes, I did. I killed them all. The Supreme Leader was most grateful. He gave me an electric rice cooker in reward.”
The guard gazed at her in astonishment, as though she had just informed him that a mountain of gold had been delivered to her door.
“Is that why you are here?” he asked. “They suspect corruption?”
“Is there corruption here?” asked Chung-Cha aggressively.
“No, no. None. I promise it.”
“A promise is a strong thing, Comrade. I will hold you to it. Now bring me Min.”
He bowed quickly and hurriedly set off to fetch the child.
Twenty minutes later Chung-Cha sat in a small room with two chairs and one table. She stared over at the little girl. She had asked Min to sit down but Min had refused, preferring, she said, to stand.
And stand she did, with her hands balled into fists as she stared back at Chung-Cha with open defiance. With that look Chung-Cha knew it was a miracle the girl was even still alive at this place.
“My name is Yie Chung-Cha,” she said. “I have been told that your name is Min. What is your other name?”
Min said nothing.
“Do you have family here?”
Min said nothing.
Chung-Cha looked over the girl’s arms and legs. They were scarred and dirty and heavily bruised. There were open, festering wounds. Everything about the child was an open, festering wound. But in the eyes, yes, in the eyes Chung-Cha saw a fire that she did not believe any beatings or disease could extinguish.
“I ate rats,” said Chung-Cha. “As many as I could. The meat, it staves off the sickness that others here get. It is the protein that does it. I did not know that when I was here. I only learned of it later. I was lucky in that way.”
She watched as Min’s fists uncurled. Yet Min still looked wary. Chung-Cha could understand this. The official first rule of the camp might be, You must not escape. But the unofficial and far more important first rule for any prisoner was, You must trust no one.
“I lived in the first hut by the path to the left of the inner gate,” said Chung-Cha. “This was some years ago.”
“You were a hostile, then,” Min blurted out. “So why are you no longer here?” she asked, anger and resentment pronounced in each of the words.
“Because I was useful to others outside this place.”
“How?” demanded Min, now forgetting her caution.
In that question Chung-Cha could see what she had hoped to see. The girl wanted out, when so many prisoners, even younger than she, were totally resigned to living here forever. The fire in their lives, and with it their courage, was gone. It was sad, but it was a fact. They were lost.
“I was a tough little bitch,” replied Chung-Cha.
“I am a tough little bitch too.”
“I could see that. It’s the only reason you’re here talking to me.”
Min blinked and relaxed just a
bit more. “How can I be useful to you?”
Defiance yes, but intelligence, and its first cousin cleverness, thought Chung-Cha. Well, after all, in Korean that’s what Min meant: cleverness and intelligence.
“How do you think you can be?” asked Chung-Cha, turning the query around and flinging it back at her.
Min pondered this for a few moments. Chung-Cha could almost see the mental churnings going on inside the girl’s head.
“How were you useful to others?” asked Min. “That allowed you to leave here?”
Chung-Cha managed to hide her smile, and her satisfaction. Min was proving to be up to the challenge.
“I was trained to do a specific job.”
“Then I can too,” said Min.
“Even though you don’t know what the job is?”
“I can do anything,” declared Min. “I will do anything to leave here.”
“And your family?”
“I have no family.”
“They’re dead?”
“I have no family,” repeated Min.
