A Dream of Lights (3 page)

But even among all this confusion, the guilt I felt over the bun didn’t go away. At least not until that evening, when stomach-ache hit me, my body not used to the richness I’d given it, and I passed my share of thin noodle soup to my grandparents. My guilt then, to some degree, was assuaged.

I lay on my bed mat on that long winter night, watching the flames of the fire die, the embers fade and turn to black, and I felt the gradual leaking of cold from around the window frame and under the bottom of the door, felt it like ice forming across my face and cracking my lips, and I thought of Sook. I thought about meeting him, being with him, his face, his smile, his company.

He had given me a spark of light in my life of dark.

Yet his mother was the new
Inminbanjang
, and I
did
know what that meant, even though I had pretended not to, had suspected it as soon as Sook told me where he lived. She was the new head of our local neighbourhood group – a spy for our government.

Every few weeks she would have to report to an agent from the Ministry of Public Security. Inform on people who hadn’t worked hard enough, or had said something against our Dear Leader, or failed to wear the badge with His face on over their hearts, or let dust gather on His picture. An endless list.

Other people would work for her too, all reporting back to her, even if only gossip; they had to say something. Some of those reported would be sent to re-education lessons, some to prison, some executed in the fields. I had never known anyone accused to then be found innocent.

It hung over us as we tried to live, shaping everything said and everything done, not because of guilt – we had none, we were good citizens, working hard, doing our duty – but because of the power these people held. Even the most patriotic, the most innocent and best behaved and hardest working could be accused and found guilty of anything, if someone wanted it enough.

“Is anyone incorruptible?” my grandfather used to say to me as a warning. “If they’re hungry enough, or sad enough? Or need money to try to buy medicine?”

Or if they want to keep someone away from their son?
I wondered.

I didn’t think for one moment, though, that the idea of a government spy was the truth my mother was trying to hide from me. There was something more going on in my home that I was not deemed old enough, or sensible enough, or trustworthy enough to be allowed to know.

But as I lay there in the cold, my thoughts again strayed back to Sook, and as my eyes grew heavy with the image of him, a warmth spread through me, sending me to sleep with a smile on my face for the first time I could remember.

Yet not for one moment did I think I was being naive.

As I walked alongside the fields the next day, my feet stumbling across the frozen earth, heading for the trees on higher ground to look for firewood, I saw a boy moving towards me, his frame slightly bigger than most, his walk slightly faster, his arms swinging, his legs marching.

So obvious he wasn’t like the rest of us. Not as hungry, or as weak, or as worn down by tiredness.

My stomach lurched and I could feel the heat rise in my cheeks and my mouth go dry. I looked up to him, and down again, away to the distance, and back to him just as he looked at me. Our paces slowed as we approached, staring at each other. And we stopped.

“Tonight?” I whispered.

“I thought you didn’t…”

I shrugged.

“All right.” He nodded. “After dark. When everyone’s asleep?”

I stared at him, so nervous, so excited.

“Where? On the corner near your house?”

“No,” I replied.

He nodded. “No, you’re right. At the end of the path then, where it splits in two. Next to the tree?”

I knew where he meant; it was quiet and secluded, away from any houses. I agreed before I could change my mind, and I walked away with a smile in my eyes. I wanted to be with him, spend time with him, find out about him. I knew how dangerous it was, but I didn’t listen to that voice in my head questioning why I was doing it, when I’d already turned him down, when it could cause so much trouble if anyone found out, when we could not possibly have any future, the two of us, in this society.

My mother asked me if I was ill that evening, my grandmother said I was quiet, my father mentioned that I looked preoccupied. After each I replied I was fine, a bit tired, a little hungry. My grandfather, though, I caught watching me every now and then – across the table as we ate our maize, as I looked back from watching the sun setting through the window, or when I was pulling out the bed mats and unfolding the blankets. But he didn’t say a word.

Darkness came early in wintertime, and the nights were long and cold. We would be sleeping by seven thirty, keeping warm under blankets and duvets rather than using firewood and fuel so precious to us.

I waited that first night, and waited, for what felt like hours, lying under my covers, trying to stay awake while tiredness consumed me and sleep pulled at my eyelids. I listened to Father’s breathing turn slow, turn heavy, turn to snores, and I whispered Mother’s name, watching her shadow in the darkness to see if she turned towards me, or lifted her head, or muttered a reply. But she didn’t.

They were asleep. Yet I lay there still, a bit longer, waiting for something, I didn’t know what. Maybe for my nerves to subside, or to talk myself out of it, for my indecision to go, or to find the courage to pull away those blankets and step out into the cold.

This wasn’t the kind of thing I did. I was a good girl. I worked hard at school and on the fields, I obeyed my parents, I respected them. I had no secrets and told no lies. I was straightforward and honest. My life was uncomplicated.

But this? This
thing
presenting itself to me, this made my chest hot and my breath short and my skin prickle. This made me feel excited, alive.

I stretched my legs out from the warmth of the blankets and into the cold air, and I rolled my body out on to the floor without making a sound. Quickly and quietly I pulled on my clothes, and with my eyes peeled, trying to make sense of the gloom in front of me, I bulked the blankets up on the bed, hoping that if Mother or Father should wake, they’d presume it was me.

The wind bit at me as I walked to meet him, the skin on my face tightening and the air freezing inside my lungs. There was no electricity in the village for lights, and that night only a sliver of moon lit the sky, jumping for ever in and out of clouds, plunging me one moment into blackness complete and engulfing, the next allowing me the tiniest piece of glistening light to try and find my way.

And so I moved carefully, shuffling at first, then stepping, then striding; walking by memory with the crunching of gravel or the softness of mud under my feet, the touch to my fingers of a farm building made of wood to my right, a bush with nothing but spiky branches to my left.

I approached with footfalls silent on grass, and my breathing slow and controlled and even. When I could sense he was there I stopped, closed my eyes, hearing the whistle of his breath and the steady scratching of one nervous fingernail on another.

I could turn round and go. Head back home and he would never know
, I thought.
He would never say anything and it would be forgotten. My life would carry on steady and simple. And boring.

I opened my eyes and took those final steps towards him. “Sook,” I whispered, and I heard his breathing change and could imagine a smile reaching across his face.

“Yoora,” he replied.

For a moment we just stood, and I didn’t know what to say or do, and I didn’t know what I expected him to say or do either. My clothes were thin and the air was freezing and my knees and legs shook and my teeth chattered, though I was certain it wasn’t just because of the cold.

“Here,” he whispered, and I felt him wrap a blanket round me.

“W… what about you?” I stammered.

“My clothes are warmer,” he replied, and as he stood in front of me, pulling the blanket round my body and up under my chin, I could feel the warmth coming from him, and I could smell him close to me and on the blanket. I looked up at his face as the moon came out from behind a cloud again, catching its light flitting across his skin and showing the outline of his smile. My stomach tipped. I was so close to him, and his hands as they pulled the blanket were nearly touching me.

My life was so routine, so predictable and uneventful and monotonous. Excitement was our Dear Leader’s birthday, or the birthday of His father before Him, our Eternal President, Kim Il Sung. When we were allowed a day off school or work to lay a red flower at the feet of their statues and sing their praises.

Dread was a test at school, checking you could recite the details of our Eternal President’s life, where He was born, studied, the battles He fought in, the never-ending list of His achievements. And those of our Dear Leader. Knowing the punishment was at least the cane or a punch.

Fear was everybody else. Watching you, forming opinions of you, lying about you with words that could kill.

This? This was something else entirely. This was… exhilarating… thrilling. I felt awake. I felt alive.

“Shall we walk?” he asked, and all I could do was nod my head.

Together we strolled up the track that led away from the village, my mind racing for things to say as I pulled the blanket tighter around me, felt the roughness of it on my face. I was nervous, a little frightened, and next to me I could feel Sook glancing one way then another, up to the tops of the trees then down to his feet on the ground.

“Are there bugs?” he asked. “Insects and little creatures like that? Or any animals?”

I couldn’t help but smile at him. “Of course – it’s the countryside.”

I heard him suck breath in. “Big ones?”

“What?” I asked. “Like tigers and bears?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes,” I nodded. “They’ll be watching you now, then they’ll leap out and grab you and eat you up.”

“Really?” His voice trembled.

I paused, letting him believe, just for a moment. “No. Not really. Not here. Further north, yes.”

“How do you know that?”

I shrugged. “Everybody knows that. There are some here. Insects of course and a few animals and birds. Owls. Nothing that will hurt you. Lots that you can eat, if you can catch them.”

“Snakes?”

I laughed. “No snakes. I promise. You’re not from the countryside, are you?”

“No.”

I didn’t dare ask him any more, it felt rude and intrusive.
He must be from a town. Or a city
, I thought. I already knew the reasons why people were moved – those who had fallen foul of the authorities or committed some crime against the Fatherland, yet nothing bad enough for a prison sentence. That or they had connections that protected them, or they were well thought of. Before.

We stopped walking and turned round, staring down at the groups of houses and fields that were our village, silver moonlight passing over them as the wind blew at the clouds.

“My father’s disabled,” he whispered, as if this would answer the questions I didn’t dare ask. “We lived in the capital, Pyongyang. He had an accident at work. Lost half his leg. Then we moved.”

I nodded. “I see,” I replied. But I didn’t.

“He doesn’t leave the house now. Mother was really angry.”

“Why? Was it somebody else’s fault?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I mean, she was angry that we had to move. But… but… she didn’t show it, didn’t say anything; she couldn’t: she knew we had to do what we were told.”

I turned my head to him and stared at his silhouette in the moonlight, surprised how open he was being. “I’m sorry, Sook,” I said, and his name felt strange in my mouth, “but I don’t think I understand.”

He sighed long and heavy and I waited until finally he turned his face to me. “It was Pyongyang,” he said.

“I don’t… I still don’t…”

He leant in closer. “There are no disabled people in Pyongyang. It’s not allowed,” he whispered.

“Oh,” I replied, putting the pieces together in my head. “I didn’t know that.”

“It’s not written anywhere. Nobody says it.” He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “Business people go there, and tourists, foreigners. It doesn’t present a good image, having disabled people or handicapped people in the streets.” His voice was so low I could barely make out his words. “Or the old. They move away too. Sent somewhere foreigners aren’t allowed to go. Pyongyang is a place for the young and the pretty, for successful people and the trustworthy. People who don’t ask questions.” And he stared at me, right into me, with such intensity. “I didn’t just say that. You wouldn’t… you wouldn’t…?”

And I knew so well what he was asking for. Reassurance that I wouldn’t repeat what he’d said, or report him, because some might think what he’d said was scandalous, punishable,
reactionary.
But to me it wasn’t. It made perfect sense. Pyongyang was the face our nation showed to the world, and of course anyone would want that to look as good as possible. Maybe it was surprising to hear that put into words, but not shocking.

But still
, I thought to myself,
he must trust me to say it out loud.
Or trusts that I wouldn’t dare speak out against the son of the
Inminbanjang
.

“I… I… won’t say anything,” I replied.

And there it was. Something we shared. That tied us together. I wished I could tell him something in return, a secret or a suspicion, something dangerous or daring, that meant I had given and trusted, as he had; but I wasn’t brave enough, and I didn’t have anything to share anyway.

Not then at least.

We walked a little more, that first meeting, and spoke a little more, but we soon headed home, beaten by the cold and my lack of courage. I wanted to be brave and bold, to not care if we were caught or our parents found out, but the consequences frightened me, shouting a warning at me from the back of my mind –
his mother is the
Inminbanjang!

But it was only our first meeting, and I sneaked back into the house while everyone slept on oblivious, and I climbed back into bed, peeling away my layers of clothes under the blankets and looking forward so much to the next time I saw Sook.

We met more, and I thought less of being caught and of what might happen. Together, on our evenings, we would stroll up past fields and away from the village, barely able to see each other except for when the moon was out, but it never mattered – we were there for each other’s company.

We talked about everything and nothing, shared thoughts and wonderings and sometimes opinions. I asked him if he was proud of his mother when she reported the first reactionary citizen in the village, an old man, recently widowed, who could no longer work and had no family to support him. Someone had overheard him saying that our Dear Leader wasn’t providing enough food for His people. He was executed two days later.

Of course, she’d done well and the old man deserved it; it’s not our place to complain or to judge His leadership. But the delight in her eyes as the man was taken away woke me with nightmares for weeks, imagining it was me she was reporting, with some made-up charge to have me taken away after she found out about me and her son.

But even as time passed and Sook and I spoke more and more, we never talked about or queried or commented on whatever it was we had together, growing and deepening. Even though whatever we had didn’t have a future.

Not if either of us wanted a future that was safe.