“Listen! You have to be strong and brave! You have to learn how to fight your own battles if you want to survive,” I said.
I left feeling very worried. As soon as I got home, the police started badgering me again. They claimed that if I didn’t pay compensation, my son would be sent to a concentration camp. I felt sick to my stomach. I absolutely couldn’t let that happen.
I got the idea of trying to get him into the military as a last resort. At least it would remove him from his current mess. So I went to the local recruitment center and said my son was eager to join up. I even offered them some soybean paste and soy sauce to sweeten the deal.
Though they initially said no, I didn’t give up that easily. I went back every day after work. Oh, I knew my chances of success were slim, but what did I have to lose? If my son couldn’t enter the military, he’d be arrested. He’d disappear. I was desperate.
They eventually threw me out of the recruitment center. So my hopes, yet again, were at an end.
The following day, I went to see Ho-chol. I’d decided to take him back home with me to Hamhung City. I told him how I’d tried to get him signed up at the recruitment center, but to no avail. His best chance would be to get away for a while and lie low until they forgot about him.
Some young men wearing military uniforms stood in front of the station as we waited to board the train. They were new recruits, smiling and holding hands with their parents, looking very content with themselves. Some of them were taking souvenir photographs. I could picture the inscription, THE DAY OUR SON JOINED THE MILITARY. A happy memory.
My son began to weep, but not tears of joy. The sight of him brought tears to my eyes as well. “Father! Please don’t cry too! You’ve done so much for me ever since I was born. I know that, and people in the village have told me as well. You’ve made it through so many hard times; I know you did everything you could.”
At that, I broke down completely. I hugged him and started sobbing loudly, even though the station was full of people.
The new recruits started walking proudly onto the platform. Suddenly, I had an idea. I told my son to get on the same train. I thought that maybe he could get swept along with them and end up in training with them. It also struck me that I might never see him again. I wanted to take a photograph with him, but of course that was impossible.
I gave him ten won. It was all I had.
“Look after yourself. I think the police will forget about you after a while, so try to make the best of it until then,” I said.
“Don’t worry, Father. I’ll contact you when I can. I’ll definitely come back and find you.”
He boarded the train. The doors slammed. A desolate whistle sounded. Then the train started to move.
I looked at my son, but I couldn’t see him properly. Hot tears blurred my vision.
I kept waving until the train was out of sight.
After my son’s departure, I worried that I might go off the rails, so I asked my father and sister if we could come and live with them in Dong Chong-ri. Technically, citizens had no freedom of movement. But since we’d dropped out of the system, we could move about without the police getting involved. They only very rarely came after people like us; usually they just couldn’t be bothered.
So we moved back in with my father and sister Masako. We were nicknamed “the Penniless Returnees.” Myong-hwa and Ho-son missed their older brother terribly. I could tell they worried about him, even though they tried to keep such thoughts to themselves. Ho-chol had always looked after them, like another parent, from the time they were babies. They obviously felt his absence acutely; it made my own pain in missing him even worse.
One day, when my father was alone at home, a young man knocked on the door. My father immediately recognized him as one of the hoodlums who hung around on the street.
“Sell this to a rich returnee! If you sell it, you can keep some of the profit,” he said to my father.
And what was this wonderful item that he waved in front of my father’s face? A seal penis, I kid you not. It was apparently something greatly valued in Chinese medicine. Any kind of medicine was hard to come by in North Korea, so something like that would command a high price. The thug shoved the penis into my father’s hand and ran off before he could answer.
My father smelled a rat. We were known for being poor; the thug must have known that. So what was he hoping to get out of us? Why didn’t the punk just sell it himself? Why lose a share of the profit? But in the end, my father thought, “Well, if I can make some money out of it . . .”
It proved to be a fatal mistake.
He went off looking for a buyer, and before he knew it, the penis was snatched away by another thug. Although my father was seventy-four years old, he still had a young man’s mind. So what did he do? He tried to chase after his assailant. But his legs just weren’t up to it anymore.
“Thief! Thief! Stop thief!” he shouted.
No one paid him any attention. Things like that happened all the time in North Korea. My father lost sight of the man and returned home.
That night, the first thug came back to our house.
“I’ve found someone who wants to buy that seal penis. I need it back,” he said.
“Do you think I was born yesterday? Do you think I can’t recognize a scam when it’s staring me in the face?” I said.
“If you dare to make a false accusation against me, I’ll beat the living daylights out of you, you piece of shit.”
“You know where you can shove that seal penis of yours?” I slammed the door in his face.
He left, but he kept coming back. Day after day. If I wasn’t around, he beat up my father and sister. Then the police summoned my father. When he returned after midnight, his face was black and blue. The inside of his mouth was cut and his lips were bloodstained.
Some tough young cop had beaten him up. He kept going on about the seal penis. “Where is it, you bastard? This is North Korea. You don’t mess with the law. This is what it feels like if you mess with the law.”
And so the beating resumed. In the past, my father had been known for his ability to defend himself, but this was a different time and place. There was nothing he could say or do. I was helpless as well. I was furious that this thug had taken advantage of him like that, but I knew the police would never listen. There was just no way around the corruption.
My father never truly recovered from that brutal beating. As he grew weaker, I kept picturing him as he had once been back in Japan. The Tiger. Brawny beyond belief. By 1994, he couldn’t stand up on his own, and he spent his days in bed. Soon, he couldn’t even stomach the thinnest gruel.
One day, he called us all to his bedside. “I’m dying,” he said. “But you have to stay alive. You have to get back to Japan. One way or another, you must. And when you get back, let everyone know I’m dead. My old friends will help you out.” My children cried and called out to him, “Grandpa! Grandpa!”
I was desperate to get my hands on some medicine for him, but we didn’t have any money. He deteriorated quickly. Soon he found it difficult to breathe, and shortly after that he stopped speaking.
One afternoon, he beckoned me over. When I went over to him, he tried to speak, but I couldn’t understand. I eventually grasped that he wanted the tiny hoe that my mother used to use to dig up root vegetables and mountain weeds. I had no idea what he wanted it for, but you don’t deny a dying man.
As soon as I gave it to him, he tried to shove it down his throat.
I grabbed it away from him. “What the hell are you doing?” I yelled.
He pointed to his throat. It was blocked with phlegm, and he was struggling to breathe.
His breathing grew shallower. My son and daughter rubbed his arms and legs in an effort to help his circulation.