CONGRATULATE one another, citizens, for high praises are in order on the occasion of the publication of the Dear Leader’s latest artistic treatise, On the Art of Opera. This is a sequel to Kim Jong Il’s earlier book On the Art of the Cinema, which is required reading for serious actors worldwide. To mark the occasion, the Minister of Collective Child Rearing announced the composition of two new children’s songs—“Hide Deeply” and “Duck the Rope.” All week, expired ration cards may be used to gain admittance to matinee opera performances!
Now, an important word from our Minister of Defense: Certainly the loudspeaker in each and every apartment in North Korea provides news, announcements, and cultural programming, but it must be reminded that it was by Great Leader Kim Il Sung’s decree in 1973 that an air-raid warning system be installed across this nation, and a properly functioning early-warning network is of supreme importance. The Inuit people are a tribe of isolated savages that live near the North Pole. Their boots are called mukluk. Ask your neighbor later today, what is a mukluk? If he does not know, perhaps there is a malfunction with his loudspeaker, or perhaps it has for some reason become accidentally disconnected. By reporting this, you could be saving his life the next time the Americans sneak-attack our great nation.
Citizens, when last we saw the beauty Sun Moon, she had closed herself off. Our poor actress was handling her loss badly. Why won’t she turn to the inspirational tracts of the Dear Leader? Kim Jong Il is someone who understands what you’re going through. Losing his brother when he was seven, his mother after that, and then a baby sister a year later, not to mention a couple of stepmothers—yes, the Dear Leader is someone who speaks the language of loss.
Still, Sun Moon did understand the role of reverence in a good citizen’s life, so she packed a picnic lunch to take to the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery, just a short walk from her house on Mount Taesong. Once there, her family spread a cloth on the ground, where they could relax at their meal, knowing Taepodong-II missiles stood at the ready, while high above, North Korea’s BrightStar satellite defended them from space.
The meal, of course, was bulgogi, and Sun Moon had prepared all manner of banchan to accompany the feast, including some gui, jjim, jeon, and namul. They thanked the Dear Leader for their bounty and dug in!
As he ate, Commander Ga asked about her parents. “Do they live here in the capital?”
“It’s just my mother,” Sun Moon said. “She retired to Wonsan, but I never hear from her.”
Commander Ga nodded. “Yes,” he said, “Wonsan.”
He stared off into the cemetery, no doubt thinking of all the golf and karaoke to be found in that glorious retirement community.
“You’ve been there?” she asked.
“No, but I’ve seen it from the sea.”
“Is it beautiful, Wonsan?”
The children were fast at their chopsticks. Birds eyed them from the trees.
“Well,” he said, “I can say the sand is especially white. And the waves are quite blue.”
She nodded. “I’m sure,” she said. “But why, why doesn’t she write?”
“Have you written her?”
“She never sent me her address.”
Commander Ga certainly knew that Sun Moon’s mother was having too much fun to write. No other nation on earth has an entire city, right on the beach, dedicated to the comfort of its retired persons. Here, there is surf casting, watercolor, handicrafts, and a Juche book club. Too many activities to name! And Ga also knew that if more citizens volunteered at the Central Postal Bureau in their evenings and weekends, less mail would be lost in transit across our glorious nation.
“Stop worrying about your mother,” he told her. “It’s the young ones you should focus on.”
After lunch, they spilled the leftover food into the grass for the cute little birds to eat. Then Ga decided the children needed some education. He took them to the top of the hill, and while Sun Moon looked on with pride, the good Commander indicated the most important martyr in the cemetery, Kim Jong Suk, wife of Kim Il Sung and mother of Kim Jong Il. The busts of all the martyrs were larger-than-life bronzes whose burnished hues seemed to bring their subjects to life. Ga explained at length Kim Jong Suk’s anti-Japanese heroics and how she was kindly known for carrying the heavy packs of older revolutionary guerrillas. The children wept that she died so young.
Then they walked a few meters to the next martyrs, Kim Chaek, An Kil, Kang Kon, Ryu Kyong Su, Jo Jong Chol, and Choe Chun Guk, all patriots of the highest order who fought at the Great Leader’s side. Then Commander Ga pointed out the tomb of the hot-blooded O Jung Hup, commander of the famed Seventh Regiment. Next was the eternal sentinel Cha Kwang Su, who froze to death during a night watch at Lake Chon. The children rejoiced in their new understandings. And here was Pak Jun Do, who took his own life in a test of loyalty to our leaders. Don’t forget Back Hak Lim, who earned his nickname Eagle Owl one imperialist at a time. Who hadn’t heard of Un Bo Song, who’d packed his ears with earth before charging a Japanese gun emplacement? More, the children called, more! Thus they walked the rows, taking note of Kong Young, Kim Chul Joo, Choe Kwang, and O Paek Ryong, all too heroic for medals. Ahead was Choe Tong O, father of South Korean commander Choe Tok Sin, who defected to North Korea in order to pay his respects here. And here is Choe Tong O’s brother by marriage Ryu Tong Yol! Next was the bust of tunnel master Ryang Se Bong and the assassination trio of Jong Jun Thaek, Kang Yong Chang, and “the Sportsman” Pak Yong Sun. Many Japanese orphans still feel the burn of Kim Jong Thae’s long patriotic shadow.
Such education was the kind that brought milk to women’s breasts!
Sun Moon’s skin was flush, so nakedly had Commander Ga aroused her patriotism.
“Children,” she called. “Go play in the woods.”
Then she took the arm of Commander Ga and led him downhill to the botanical gardens. They passed the experimental farm, with its tall corn and bursting soybeans, the guards with their chrome Kalashnikovs ever at the ready to defend the national seed bank against imperial aggression.
She paused before what is perhaps our greatest national treasure, the twin greenhouses that exclusively cultivate kimjongilia and kimilsungia.
“Pick your hothouse,” she told him.
The buildings were translucent white. One glowed with the full fuchsia of kimjongilia. The breeding house of kimilsungia radiated an operatic overload of lavender orchid.
It was clear she couldn’t wait. “I choose Kim Il Sung,” Sun Moon said. “For he is the progenitor of our entire nation.”
Inside, the air was warm, humid. A mist hung. As this husband and wife strolled the rows arm in arm, the plants seemed to take notice—their swiveling blossoms followed in our lovers’ wake, as if to drink in the full flavor of Sun Moon’s honor and modesty. The couple stopped, deep in the hothouse, to recumbently enjoy the splendor of North Korea’s leadership. An army of hummingbirds hovered above them, expert pollinators of the state, the buzzing thrum of their wing beats penetrating the souls of our lovers, all the while dazzling them with the iridescent flash of their throats and the way their long flower-kissing tongues flicked in delight. Around Sun Moon, blossoms opened, the petals spreading wide to reveal hidden pollen pots. Commander Ga dripped with sweat, and in his honor, groping stamens emanated their scent in clouds of sweet spoor that coated our lovers’ bodies with the sticky seed of socialism. Sun Moon offered her Juche to him, and he gave her all he had of Songun policy. At length, in depth, their spirited exchange culminated in a mutual exclaim of Party understanding. Suddenly, all the plants in the hothouse shuddered and dropped their blossoms, leaving a blanket upon which Sun Moon could recline as a field of butterflies ticklishly alighted upon her innocent skin.
Finally, citizens, Sun Moon has shared her convictions with her husband!
Savor the glow, citizens, for in the next installment, we take a closer look at this “Commander Ga.” Though he is remarkable at satisfying the political needs of a woman, we will look closely at the ways in which he has defiled all seven tenets of North Korean Good Citizenship.
SUN MOON announced that the day to honor her great-uncle was upon them. Even though it was Saturday, a workday, they’d make the walk to the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery to lay a wreath. “We’ll make it a picnic,” Commander Ga told her. “And I’ll cook my favorite meal.”
Ga had refused to let any of them eat breakfast. “An empty stomach,” he told them, “is my secret ingredient.” For the picnic, Ga brought only a pot, some salt, and Brando on a lead.
Sun Moon shook her head at the sight of the dog. “He’s not legal,” she said.
“I’m Commander Ga,” he told her. “If I want to walk a dog, I walk a dog. Besides, my days are numbered, right?”
“What’s that mean?” the boy asked. “His days are numbered.”
“Nothing,” Sun Moon said.
They walked downhill under the Fun Fair’s idle gondola. With the children of Pyongyang hard at work, the lift chairs creaked in place above them. The zoo, however, was crowded with peasants bused in for their once-a-year trip to the capital. The four of them cut through the woods, dense this time of year, and left Brando tied to a tree so as not to offend any of the veterans paying their respects.
This was the first time he’d entered the cemetery. Sun Moon ignored all the other markers and led them right to the bust of her great-uncle. The bust depicted a man whose face looked Southern in its angles and abruptness of brow. His eyes were almost closed in an expression of certainty and calm.
“Ah,” Ga said. “It’s Kang Kung Li. He charged across a mountain bridge under enemy fire. He took the door off Kim Il Sung’s car and carried it as a shield.”
“You’ve heard of him?” she asked.
“Of course,” Ga said. “He saved many lives. People who break the rules in order to do good are sometimes named after him.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Sun Moon said. “I fear the only people named after him these days are a few measly orphans.”
Commander Ga wandered the rows in stunned recognition. Here were the names of all the boys he’d known, and looking at their busts, it seemed as though they’d made it to adulthood—here they had mustaches and strong jaws and broad shoulders. He touched their faces and ran his fingers in the hangul characters of their names carved in the marble pedestals. It was as if, instead of starving at nine or falling to factory accidents at eleven, they’d all lived into their twenties and thirties like normal men. At the tomb of Un Bo Song, Commander Ga traced the features of the bronze bust with his hand. The metal was cold. Here Bo Song was smiling and bespectacled, and Ga touched the martyr’s cheek, saying, “Bo Song.”
There was one more bust he needed to see, and Sun Moon and the children trailed him through the tombs until he came to it. The bust and the man faced one another but bore no resemblance. He hadn’t known what he’d feel when he finally faced this martyr, but Ga’s only thought was, I’m not you. I’m my own man.
Sun Moon approached him. “Is this martyr special to you?” she asked.
“I used to know someone with his name,” he told her.
“Do you know this one’s story?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a pretty simple tale. Though descended from impure bloodlines, he joined the guerrillas to fight the Japanese. His comrades doubted his loyalties. To prove they could trust him with their lives, he took his own.”
“That story speaks to you?”
“This guy I used to know,” he said. “It spoke to him.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Sun Moon said. “Once a year is all I can take of this place.”
The boy and the girl each held a hand on Brando’s lead as he pulled them deep into the woods. Commander Ga started a fire and showed the children how to notch a tripod to hold a pot over the flames. The pot they filled with water from a stream, and when they found a little pool, they narrowed the water’s exit with rocks, and Ga held his shirt at the pinch point like a sieve while the children walked the pool, trying to scare any fish downstream. They caught a ten-centimeter fingerling in the shirt. Or perhaps it was an adult and the fish here were stunted. He scaled the fish with the back of a spoon, gutted it, and fixed it on a stick for Sun Moon to grill. Once charred, it would go into the stock with the salt.
There were many flowers growing wild, probably owing to the proximity of the cemetery’s bouquets. He showed the children how to identify and pick ssukgat; together they softened the stalks between two stones. Behind a boulder was an ostrich fern, its succulent buds begging to be stripped from their fanlike leaves. As luck would have it, growing at the bottom of the boulder was stone-ear seogi—sharp with the brine of seaweed. They scraped these lichen free with a sharp stick. He showed the boy and the girl how to spot yarrow, and searching together, they managed to find one wild ginger, small and pungent. As a final touch, they picked shiso leaves, a plant left behind by the Japanese.
Soon the pot was steaming, three dots of fish oil turning on the surface as Ga stirred the wild herbs. “This,” Ga said, “is my favorite meal in the world. In prison, they kept us right at the edge of starvation. You could still do work, but you couldn’t think. Your mind would try to retrieve a word or thought, but it wouldn’t be there. There’s no sense of time when you’re hungry. You just labor and then it’s dark, no memory. But on logging details, we could make this. By building a fishfall at night, you could gather minnows all day while you worked. Herbs were everywhere up in the hills, and every bowl of this added a week to your life.”
He tasted the broth, bitter still. “More time,” he said. His wet shirt hung in a tree.
“What about your parents?” Sun Moon asked. “I thought when people were sent to the labor camps, their parents went with them.”
“It’s true,” he told her. “But that wasn’t a concern for me.”
“Sorry to hear that,” she said.
“I guess you could say my folks lucked out,” he said. “What of your parents? Do they live here in the capital?”
Sun Moon’s voice went grave. “I only have my mother left,” she said. “She’s in the east. She retired to Wonsan.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Wonsan.”
She was quiet. He stirred the soup, the herbs rising now.
“How long ago was this?” he asked.
“A few years,” she said.
“And she’s busy,” he said. “Probably too busy to write.”
It was hard to read her face. She looked at him expectantly, as if hoping that he would offer reassuring news. But deeper in her eyes, he could see a darker knowing.
“I wouldn’t worry about her,” he said. “I’m sure she’s fine.”
Sun Moon didn’t look comforted.
The children took turns tasting the soup and making faces.
He tried again. “Wonsan has plenty to keep a person busy,” he added. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The sand is especially white. And the waves are quite blue.”
Sun Moon gazed absently into the pot.
“So don’t believe the rumors, okay?” he told her.
“What are the rumors?” she asked.
“That’s the spirit,” he said.
In Prison 33, all of a person’s self-deceit was slowly broken down, until even the fundamental lies that formed your identity faltered and fell. For Commander Ga, this happened at a stoning. These took place near the river, where there were banks of round, water-polished rocks. When a person was caught trying to escape, he was buried to his waist at the water’s edge and at dawn, a slow, almost endless procession of inmates filed by. There were no exceptions—everyone had to throw. If your toss was lackluster, the guards would shout for vigor, but you didn’t have to throw again. He’d been through it three times, but deep in the line, so that what he stoned was not a person but a mass, bent unnaturally to the ground, no longer even steaming.
But one morning, by chance, he was near the front of the line. Traversing the round stones was dangerous for Mongnan. She needed an arm to steady her, and she had him up early, near the front of the line, none of which he minded until he came to understand that the man they were to stone would be awake and have an opinion. The rock was cold in his hand. He could hear the rocks ahead of them finding their homes. He steadied Mongnan as they neared the half-buried man, whose arms were up in a mime of self-defense. He was trying to speak, but something other than words was coming out, and the blood that ran from his wounds was still hot.
Nearing, he saw the bleeding man’s tattoos, and it took him a moment to realize they were in Cyrillic, and then he saw the face of the woman inked on his chest.
“Captain,” he called, dropping his rock, “Captain, it’s me.”
The Captain’s eyes rolled in recognition, but he could not make words. His hands still moved, as if he was trying to clear imaginary cobwebs. His fingernails had somehow torn during his escape attempt.
“Don’t,” Mongnan said as he let go her arm and crouched by the Captain, taking the sailor’s hand. “It’s me, Captain, from the Junma,” he said.
There were only two guards, young men with hard-set faces and ancient rifles. They began shouting, their words coming in sharp claps, but he wouldn’t let go of the old man’s hand.
“The Third Mate,” the Captain said. “My boy, I told you I’d protect all of you. I saved my crew again.”
It was unnerving how the Captain looked toward him, yet his eyes didn’t quite find him.
“You must get out, son,” the Captain said. “Whatever you do, get out.”
A warning shot was fired, and Mongnan scrambled to him, pleading with him to return to the line. “Don’t let your friend see you get shot,” she told him. “Don’t let that be the last thing he sees.”
With these words, she pulled him back in line. The guards were quite agitated, barking orders, and Mongnan was almost yelling above them. “Throw your stone,” she commanded. “You must throw it,” and as if offering her own incentive, she dealt the Captain a hard, glancing shot to the head. It loosed a tuft of hair into the wind. “Now!” she commanded, and he hefted his rock and dealt his blow hard to the Captain’s temple, and that was the last thing the Captain saw.
Later, behind the rain barrels, he broke down.
Mongnan brought him to the ground, held him.
“Why wasn’t it Gil?” he asked her. He was weeping uncontrollably. “The Second Mate I could understand. Even Officer So. Not the Captain. He followed every rule, why him? Why not me? I have nothing, nothing at all. Why should he go to prison twice?”
Mongnan pulled him to her. “Your Captain fought back,” she told him. “He resisted, he wouldn’t let them take his identity. He died free.”
He couldn’t get hold of his breathing, and she pulled him close, like a child. “There,” she said, rocking him. “There’s my little orphan, my poor little orphan.”
Meekly, through tears, he said, “I’m not an orphan.”
“Of course you are,” she said. “I’m Mongnan, I know an orphan, of course you are. Just let go, let it all out.”
“My mother was a singer,” he told her. “She was very beautiful.”
“What was the name of your orphanage?”
“Long Tomorrows.”
“Long Tomorrows,” she said. “Was the Captain a father to you? He was a father, wasn’t he?”
He just wept.
“My poor little orphan,” she said. “An orphan’s father is twice as important. Orphans are the only ones who get to choose their fathers, and they love them twice as much.”
He put his hand over his chest, remembering how the Captain had worked the image of Sun Moon into his skin.
“I could have given him his wife back,” he told her, weeping.
“But he wasn’t your father,” she said. She took his chin and tried to lift his head so she could get through to him, but he pulled his head back to her breast. “He wasn’t your father,” she said, stroking his hair. “What’s important now is that you let go of all your illusions. It’s time to see the truth of things. Like the fact that he was right, that you have to get out of here.”
In the pot, little flakes of fish were floating off the spine, and Sun Moon, lost in thought, slowly stirred. Ga thought of how difficult it was to come to see the lies you told yourself, the ones that allowed you to function and move forward. To really do it, you needed someone’s help. Ga leaned over to smell the broth—it cleared his mind, this perfect meal. Eating such a meal at sunset, after a day of logging the ravines above 33, it was the definition of being alive. He removed Wanda’s camera and took a photo of the boy and the girl and the dog and Sun Moon, all of them casting their eyes the way people do into a fire.
“My stomach’s growling,” the boy said.
“Perfect timing,” Commander Ga answered. “The soup’s ready.”
“But we don’t have bowls,” the girl said.
“We don’t need them,” he told her.
“What about Brando?” the boy asked.
“He’ll have to find his own lunch,” Ga said and removed the loop of rope from the dog’s neck. But the dog didn’t move—he sat there, staring at the pot.
They began passing a single spoon around, and the taste of the charred fish was magnificent with the yarrow and hint of shiso.
“Prison food’s not so bad,” the girl said.
“You two must be wondering about your father,” Commander Ga said.
The boy and the girl didn’t look up; instead, they kept the spoon in motion.
Sun Moon threw him a harsh look, warning him that he was in dangerous territory.
“The wound of not knowing,” Ga said to her. “That’s the one that never heals.”
The girl cast him a thin, measured glance.
“I promise to tell you about your father,” Ga went on. “After you’ve had more time to adjust.”
“To adjust to what?” the boy asked. “To him,” the girl told her brother.
“Children,” Sun Moon said, “I told you, your father’s just on a long mission.”
“That’s not true,” Commander Ga said. “But I’ll tell you the whole story soon.”
Quietly, through her teeth, Sun Moon said, “Don’t you take their innocence.”
From the woods came a rustle. Brando stood at attention, his hair bristling.
The boy got a smile on his face. He had seen all of the dog’s tricks and here was a chance to try one out. “Hunt,” the boy said.
“No,” Ga called, but it was too late—the dog was already sprinting into the trees, his bark describing a hectic path through the brush. He barked on and on. And then they heard the shriek of a woman. Ga grabbed the rope lead and began running. The boy and the girl were right behind him. Ga followed the small stream for a while, and he could see that the water was muddy from the dog. Soon, he came upon a family, backed against a boulder by Brando’s barking. The family was eerily like theirs—a man and woman, a boy and girl, an older aunt. The dog was very agitated, snapping its teeth in mock charges, shifting its attention from one ankle to another, as if it would take all their legs in turn. Slowly Ga approached, slipped the loop around the dog’s neck.
Ga backed the dog up and took a look at the family. Their fingernails were white with malnutrition, and even the girl’s teeth had gone gray. The boy’s shirt hung empty on him as from a wire hanger. Both women had lost much hair, and the father was nothing but cords under taut skin. Ga suddenly realized the father had something behind his back. Ga rattled the rope around the dog’s neck to get it lunging.
“What are you hiding?” Ga shouted. “Show it. Show it before I let the dog loose.”
Sun Moon came up breathing heavily as the man produced a dead squirrel, its tail snapped away.
Ga couldn’t tell if they’d stolen it from the dog or if the dog was trying to steal it from them.
Sun Moon took a hard look at them. “My word,” she said. “They’re starving. There’s nothing to them.”
The girl turned to her father. “We’re not starving, are we, Papa?”
“Of course not,” the father said.
“Right before our eyes,” Sun Moon said. “Starving to death!”
Sun Moon flashed them the back of her hand and pointed at a ring. “Diamond,” she said, and after wresting it off, she placed it in the hands of the frightened mother before her.
Ga advanced and took back the ring. “Don’t be a fool,” he told Sun Moon. “This ring was a gift from the Dear Leader. Do you know what would happen if they got caught with a ring like this?” In his pocket, Ga had some military won, not much else. He took his boots off. “If you want to help them,” Ga told Sun Moon, “they need simple things they can barter at the market.”
The boy and the girl removed their shoes, and Ga also offered his belt. Sun Moon contributed earrings. “There’s a pot of soup,” Sun Moon said. “It’s good. Just follow the stream. Keep the pot.”
“That dog,” the father said. “I thought it was escaped from the zoo.”
“No,” Ga told him. “He’s ours.”
“You don’t have an extra one, do you?” the father asked.