—
That black Monami Biro would be there on the table every time I went into the interrogation room. Lying in wait. The first stage in a sequence which unfolded exactly the same way every time, the whole process seemingly designed to hammer home a single fact: that my body was no longer my own. That my life had been taken entirely out of my hands, and the only thing I was permitted to do now was to experience pain. Pain so intense I felt sure I was going to lose my mind, so horrific that I literally did lose control of my body, pissing and shitting myself.
Once the sequence had been brought to its usual conclusion, the questions began. The voice that asked the questions was never anything other than calm and composed, but whatever answer I made would inevitably bring the same result: a rifle butt to the face. I couldn’t fight the instinct that made me shrink back against the wall and shield my head with my arms, even though that only ever made things worse. When I fell down, they stamped on my back with their army boots. Only until I was just on the point of losing consciousness; then they would flip me over, and trample my shins instead.
—
Once you were told to leave the interrogation room and go back to your cell, you might be forgiven for thinking that you’d be able to relax, to let your guard down a bit. But that would be a mistake.
We had to sit on the floor of the cell for hours at a time, shoulders and back ramrod straight. Eyes front, too, directly at the window. The sergeant would bark out a warning if your gaze even threatened to stray from those iron bars, and one older guy actually had a cigarette stubbed out on his eyelids as an example to the rest of us. One of the high-school kids inadvertently scratched his neck, once; him, they beat until he lost consciousness and went as limp as a rag doll.
There were close to a hundred of us all told, wedged in so tight you could feel the knees of the guy behind you pressing into the small of your back. We sweated buckets; literally, it was like we’d been caught in a downpour. Our throats were screamingly dry, but we were only given water three times a day, with meals. I remember how savage, how animalistic that thirst was, how I would have jumped at the chance of literally anything to wet my lips, even a splash of urine would have done. And I remember the constant terror of thinking I might accidentally fall asleep. The terror of having a cigarette stubbed out on my eyelid, so vivid I could practically smell the singed flesh.
And the hunger, of course. How persistently it clung on, a translucent sucker attached to the nape of the neck. I remember those moments when, hazy with exhaustion and hunger, it seemed as though that sucker was slowly feeding on my soul.
—
Three times a day, every day, the meal we were given was exactly the same: a handful of rice, half a bowl of soup, and a few shreds of kimchi. And this was shared between two. The relief I felt when I was partnered with Kim Jin-su says something about the state I’d been reduced to at that point, a brute animal with whatever had once been human having been gradually sucked out. Why was I so relieved? Because he looked like he wouldn’t eat much. Because he was pale, with dark shadows around his eyes that made him look like he belonged in a hospital. Because of his empty, lifeless eyes.
A month ago, when I saw his obituary, those eyes were the first things I thought of. Those eyes that used to track my every movement as I fished out a bean sprout from the watery soup; that regarded me in silence as I stared with open hatred at any morsel of food that passed his lips, consumed with the fear that he might take it all for himself; those cold, empty eyes, utterly devoid of anything that could be said to resemble humanity. Just like my own.
—
There’s something I still haven’t been able to figure out.
Given that I was partnered with Kim Jin-su and ate the exact same meals as him every single day, how come he died and I’m still living?
Was it that he suffered more than me?
No, it wasn’t that. I bore more than my fair share of suffering.
Was it that he got less sleep than me?
But sleep is still every bit as elusive for me as it was for him. Even now, there’s not a single night where I’m able to snatch more than a few hours of shallow rest, rest that barely deserves the name. And it’ll be like that for as long as this life clings to me.
When you first called me to ask about Kim Jin-su, professor, it made me wonder. Even after I’d arranged to meet you, after you called again, I was still wondering. Every day without exception, those same questions niggled away at me: why did he die, while I’m still alive?
—
Do you remember, professor, that first time we spoke, when you told me that Kim Jin-su was “by no means an isolated case”? According to you, it was more than likely that many of us former prisoners would end up taking our own lives.
I suppose you thought you were helping me? Trying to save my life from heading down that same sorry track? Yes, I can well imagine that those were the kind of noble ideas you had in mind. But when it came to it, this dissertation you were planning to write, was it really going to benefit anyone other than yourself?
You explained about the “psychological autopsy” you wanted to conduct on Kim Jin-su, but I still couldn’t understand it. You wanted to record my testimony—what for? Would that bring Jin-su back to life? Our experiences might have been similar, but they were far from identical. What good could an autopsy possibly do? How could we ever hope to understand what he went through, he himself, alone? What he’d kept locked away inside himself for all those years.
—
It’s true that Jin-su did suffer some unusually brutal torture, even compared with the rest of us. Perhaps because there was something strangely delicate about him. Almost feminine. And somehow that rubbed the guards the wrong way.
But I only heard these stories at least a decade after the fact. At the time, I had no idea.
What I heard was that the soldiers made him get his penis out and rest it on the table, threatening to cane it with a wooden ruler. Apparently, they made him strip and took him out to the patch of grass in front of the guardhouse, where they tied his arms behind his back and made him lie down on his stomach. The ants nibbled at his genitals for three hours.
I heard that after he was released, he had nightmares about insects almost every single night.
—
As for what he was like before then, I can’t help you. I only ever saw him from a distance, you see, striding down the corridors of the Provincial Office.