When I’d been doing the job for about three months, the forest warden made an appearance one day. Some trees had been cut down without permission, and he was a bit scared, so he asked me to join him on his patrol that night. Just after sunset we set out, and, sure enough, we came upon some people chopping down a tree.
“Don’t move! Stay right where you are!” the warden yelled as he ran toward them with his feeble flashlight. There were about eight young guys gathered around the tree. I expected them to run off, but they didn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact. They turned on the warden and started beating him up. I jumped in to help, and eventually all eight of them were laid out.
After that, I was the talk of the nearby village. They called me “the wrestler.” Not exactly “Tiger” like my father, but I didn’t mind.
A few days later, a policeman turned up, asking for my fingerprints. I couldn’t believe it. I admit that I may have gone a bit too far, but I was helping the warden, not attacking him. I bit my tongue, not wanting to get myself in deeper trouble. I could guess what had happened. The warden had been bribed by the thieves to allow them to chop a few trees here and there, and the warden had led me into a trap. I’d become a charcoal burner to avoid the liars and thieves who passed themselves off as good people in North Korea. But there was no escape.
Just as I was getting used to my job, I got a telegram from my wife. It was short and to the point. SON BORN APRIL 15. Come back soon.
My emotions were tangled, and my mind was cloudy. Masako’s baby had died. I’d gone slightly mad and taken off to live as a hermit. And my new life suited me just fine. But now a new baby was in the picture. Part of me was thrilled by the news. But another part of me . . . less so.
When I told my boss the news, he was so ecstatic, you’d have thought the baby was his. He produced a big bag of glutinous rice, sesame seeds, azuki beans, and a load of regular rice, all scrounged from the emergency food supply.
“You must go. Best wishes to your wife from me!” he said.
I was stunned. I don’t think I’d ever seen him so much as smile before. He never spoke much and was generally aloof. But that day, he couldn’t have been kinder. I set off walking for home, surprised and confused but happy at the thought of bringing these precious gifts to my wife.
I arrived at my wife’s place on the nineteenth, and my brother-in-law welcomed me into the house. My wife was dozing with my newborn son asleep next to her. When she awoke, she was so happy to see me that she cried.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” she said.
I’d been away for more than six months, and she thought I’d left her for good.
The baby was born on Kim Il-sung’s birthday. That was hardly a happy omen to me. Not only did he have the misfortune of being born on that wretched man’s birthday, but it was also the date on which our first house had burned down in 1964. On the other hand, it was also the date that the annual food rations were distributed, so maybe it was not all bad.
My wife told me the story of the baby’s birth. She and her brother had received some glutinous rice in honor of our Leader’s birthday. They’d steamed it and were pounding it to make rice cakes—a rare treat—when suddenly, my wife went into labor.
She broke off the story and paused awkwardly for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I named the baby Myong-hwa. I would have waited to discuss it with you, but I didn’t think you were coming back.”
Surprised, I said, “But in the telegram . . . you told me it was a boy.”
My wife looked at me apologetically. “I know. It’s just I thought . . . well, if I told you it was a girl . . . you wouldn’t come back to see her.”
“Don’t be silly! Boy . . . girl . . . they’re both lovely.”
I was so happy, I pounded some steamed glutinous rice, added some sweet azuki beans, and made a special dessert. We invited some neighbors over to celebrate the birth.
Seeing my baby’s face as she slept so peacefully made me determined to work harder than ever. But the reality hit home late that night. I had a wife. And now two children. And however hard I worked, I would always be poor. I would never be allowed to better myself, no matter how much effort I put in. My children would be faced with a life of hardship regardless of what I did.
I woke up the next day, all my naive excitement drained away. Once again, I found myself overwhelmed by a sense of futility. My wife noticed the change in me. I could see it in her face. But she didn’t say anything.
I decided to visit my father and sister and my son.
Ho-chol was thrilled to see me. He kept following me around; he didn’t want me to be out of his sight for a minute. Kids are like that—they can break your heart with a smile. My father had already met baby Myong-hwa, and he was over the moon about her. Masako was there, still looking bereft. She was working in the fruit-juice plant in Dong Chong-ri, but it hadn’t seemed to improve her state of mind much. At first, it was great to be back, but the sense of hopelessness returned soon enough. I couldn’t help but think that if another tragedy befell my family, I wouldn’t be able to carry on.
I decided to get out of the house and take a walk around the village. As chance would have it, I bumped into a few old acquaintances. They’d always despised me, but strangely, they felt the need to chat. They told me about a new woman who’d turned up in the village. Apparently, she was a rich returnee from Japan, recently banished from Hamhung. Her lifestyle in Hamhung had been so luxurious, she’d fallen afoul of the secret police and been banished to our village, of all places. Normally she’d have been carted off to a concentration camp, but people thought she must have bribed someone.
I listened without much interest and wandered off. A few minutes later, I reached the village stream—and there she was, this mysterious lady. She was clean and elegant and well-dressed. I walked up to her and introduced myself. After all, we were both returnees. She glanced at me briefly, then studiously ignored me. It was clear that, to her, I simply didn’t exist. She sailed past me obliviously, another ghost in that land of the dead.
It was then that I decided to go back to the kiln, back to a world of hard work and silence. Back to cutting down trees and branches and carrying them on my back, shoving them in the kiln, and drinking away the pain in my back and my heart. I just wanted to do something honest and pure, something I couldn’t be reprimanded for. But somehow, even when I got back to my hermit’s life, I couldn’t help but think about that returnee who’d ignored me. It was stupid to dwell on that. Of all the insults I’d endured in my life, hers was hardly the worst. But I couldn’t. She’d made a point of ignoring me. She’d acted as if I didn’t exist at all, even when I stood right in front of her. That moment seemed to sum up my entire existence. I was nothing. Less than nothing. Whatever I did was a waste of time. A waste of effort.
As I was cutting down a tree one morning, I suddenly thought, The hell with this! Just end it! The pain of death would be nothing compared to this hell on earth.
I got hold of a rope—no shortage of ropes in the charcoal-burning business—slung it over a tree branch, and tied a noose. There was a rock beneath the branch just the right height for jumping off. I’d made sure of that. I climbed onto it and looked out at the river flowing in front of me. Rushing indifferently toward the future. For some reason, tears gushed from my eyes.
I pulled the noose over my head. Took a deep breath. Jumped.
The branch swayed violently above me. My body swung about. I writhed uncontrollably. But it was as if I’d stepped out of my body and was looking down on my contortions from above. I could still feel, still see, still breathe, although barely.