He reached out and touched her hair. She flinched and he slapped her so violently he drew blood.
“You will never do that again,” he ordered. “You will welcome my touch.”
She nodded and rubbed the skin where he had struck her and tasted the blood on her lips.
“You will be cleaned up. And then you will be brought to me.”
She looked at him and knew what that meant. “But the euros? I thought that was the payment.”
“In addition to the euros. While we wait the five days. Or do you prefer the filthy, dangerous mines to my bed?”
She shook her head and looked down, defeated. “I…I do not want to go to the mines.”
He smiled and cupped her trembling chin, lifting her gaze to his.
“You see, not so difficult. Food, clean water, warm bed. And I will have you as often as I want.” He turned to his men. “As will they. Anytime we want. You understand? Anything we want, I don’t care what it is. You are nothing but a dog, do you understand?”
She nodded tearfully. “I understand. But you will not hurt me? I…I have been hurt enough.”
He slapped her again. “You make no demands, filth. You do not speak unless I ask you a question.” He put his hands around her throat and slammed her against the wall. “Do you understand?”
She nodded and said in a defeated voice, “I understand.”
“You will call me seu seung,” he added, using the Korean word for master. “You will call me this even after you leave here. If you leave here. I make no promises, even if you get me the euros. You may not safely escape. It is up to me and me only. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “I understand.”
He shook her violently. “Say it. Give me my proper respect.”
“Seu seung,” she said in a tremulous voice.
He smiled and let her go. “See, that was not so bad.”
A moment later he clutched at his throat where she had struck him. He staggered backward, colliding with one of his men.
She moved so fast it seemed that everyone else had slowed by comparison. She catapulted across the room, slipped one guard’s gun from his holster, and shot him in the face with it. Another guard came at her. She turned and kicked so high her foot caught him in the eye. Her jagged toenails ripped his pupil, blinding him. He screamed and fell back as the third guard fired his gun. But she was no longer there. She had pushed backward off the wall and cartwheeled over him, taking the knife off his belt holder as she sailed past, landing a foot behind him. She slashed four times so fast no eye could follow. The guard clutched at his neck where his veins and arteries had been severed.
She never stopped moving. Using his falling body as a launch pad she leapt over him and caught the blinded guard in a leg lock around his head. She twisted her body in midair and hurled him forward, where his head struck the stone wall with such force that his skull cracked.
She picked up the pistol she had dropped, stood over each guard, and fired into their heads until they were all dead.
She had always loathed the camp guards. She had lived for years with them. They had left scars inside and outside of her that would never heal. She would never be a mother because of them. Because of them she had never even contemplated being a mother because that would mean she had come to accept herself as a human being, which she never could. Her name in the camp had been “Bitch.” Every woman in the camp had had that name. “Bitch. Bitch.” That was all she had ever heard from light to night for years on end. “Come, Bitch. Go, Bitch. Die, Bitch.”
She turned to the administrator, who lay on the floor near the door. He was not yet dead. He was still clutching his throat and gasping for air, his eyes unfocused but panicked. She had planned it this way, hitting him just hard enough to incapacitate but not kill. She knew exactly what the difference was.
She knelt down next to him. He stared up with bulging eyes, his hands at his throat. She did not smile in triumph. She did not look sad. Her features were expressionless.
She knelt down closer.
“Say it,” she said in a whisper.
He whimpered and clutched at his ruptured throat.
“Say it,” she said again. “Seu seung.”
She cupped a hand under his neck and squeezed. “Say it.”
He whimpered.
She placed her bony knee against his crotch and pressed. “Say it.”
He screamed as she jammed her knee down harder against his privates.
“Say it. Seu seung. Say it and no more pain.” She rammed her knee against him. He screamed louder. “Say it.”
“S…seu…”
“Say it. Say it all.” She ferociously ground her knee into him.
He screamed as loud as his damaged windpipe would allow. “Seu seung.”
She straightened. She did not smile in triumph. She did not look sad. She was expressionless. “See, that was not so bad,” she said, parroting his earlier words.
As he stared helplessly up at her she leapt into the air and came down on top of him. Her elbow slammed into the man’s nose with such force that she pushed the cartilage there right into his brain, like a fired bullet. This killed him instantly, whereas his crushed windpipe would have taken more time to finish him off.
She rose and looked around at the four dead men.
“Seu seung,” she said. “Me, not you.”
She searched the guards’ pockets and found a walkie-talkie. She pulled it out, turned it to a different frequency, and said simply, “It is done.”
She dropped the walkie-talkie, stepped over the dead men, and walked out of the room, still naked, covered in the men’s blood.
Her name was Chung-Cha, and she and her family had been labor camp prisoners many years ago at Camp 15, also known as Yodok. She had been only one year old when the Bowibu had come for them in the night. They always came at night. Predators did not come during the light. She had survived Yodok. Her family had not.
Other guards passed her in the hall and rushed onward to the room where the dead men were.
They said nothing to her. They didn’t look at her.
When they got there two of the guards vomited onto the stones after seeing the carnage.
When Chung-Cha reached the prearranged spot two men who wore the markings of generals in the North Korean military greeted her with respect. One handed her a wet towel and soap with which to clean off. The other held fresh clothes for her. She cleaned and then dressed in front of them without a shade of embarrassment for her nudity. Both generals averted their gazes while she did so, although it did not matter to her. She had been naked and brutalized in front of many men. She had never had privacy and thus had no expectation of it. It simply meant nothing to her. Dogs did not require clothes.
She glanced at them only once. To her, they did not look like soldiers; with their broad-rimmed puffy caps they looked more like members of a band, ready to pick up musical instruments rather than weapons. They looked funny, weak, and incompetent, when she knew them to be cagey and paranoid and dangerous to everyone, including themselves.
One said, “Yie Chung-Cha, you are to be commended. His Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un has been informed and sends his personal thanks. You will be rewarded appropriately.”
She handed back the soiled towel and soap.
“How appropriately?”
The generals glanced at each other, their features showing their amazement at this comment.
“The Supreme Leader will determine that,” said the other. “And you will be grateful for whatever he decides.”
His companion added, “There is no greater honor than to serve one’s country.”
She stared up at them both, her features unreadable. Then she turned and walked down the corridor and made her way out of the camp. As she passed, many watched her. None attempted to make eye contact. Not even the most brutal of all the guards there. Word of what she had done had already made its way through the camp. Thus none wanted to look Yie Chung-Cha in the eye because it might be the last thing they ever saw.
Her gaze never wavered. It pointed straight ahead.
Outside the four-meter fence a truck awaited. A door opened and she climbed in.
The truck immediately drove off, heading to the south, to Pyongyang, the capital. She had an apartment there. And a car. And food. And clean water. And some wons in a local bank. That was all she needed. It was far more than she had ever had. Far more than she had ever expected to have. She was grateful for this. Grateful to be alive.
Corruption could not be tolerated.
She knew that better than most.
Four men dead today by her hand.
The truck drove on.
Chung-Cha forgot about the corrupt administrator who had demanded euros and sex in payment for her escape. He was not worth any more of her thoughts.
She would return to her apartment. And she would await the next call.
It would come soon, she thought. It always did.
And she would be ready. It was the only life she had.
And for that too she was grateful.
No greater honor than to serve one’s country?
She formed spit in her mouth and then swallowed it.
Chung-Cha looked out the window, seeing nothing as they drew nearer to Pyongyang. She spoke to none of the others in the vehicle.
She always kept her thoughts to herself. That was the only thing they couldn’t take from her. And they had tried. They had tried mightily. They had taken everything else. But they had not taken that.
And they never would.