Director Park patted the back of her neck with the side of her hand. “Let’s calm down first.”
Pouring water from the yellow stainless-steel kettle, she guzzled a full cup. “Jia, try to convince Seunggyu not to hurt you; you’ve been together for a long time, and I’m sure he really loves you; that’s why he feels so betrayed by you. He almost cried. But Jia, to him, your background is paramount. Don’t trust love. Just beg him to forget about you and not to shake too much dust from your past—you’ve got to try and catch him as soon as possible.”
I left her office quietly, with Han’s anxious eyes trailing me. I had no idea where Seunggyu had gone, or if he really had a training session. Walking down the hall, I told myself, Right, as Director Park said, I must find him and beg him to forgive me and restrain him from endangering my life. But my legs were taking me back home.
Would he turn me in, send me to a political prison? It pained me that he had decided not to tell me how shocked he was. I couldn’t forget his eyes at the hotel, darting away from mine.
I retired to my room for a long while.
Before sunset, I visited my friend and former colleague Jiyun. She had quit dancing at the hotel when she got married. Everything in her house was well organized—they still had furniture and a TV—and Jiyun’s only worry was her long-unfulfilled desire for a baby. With a grin, she offered me dried anchovies on a plate. I had never seen such big anchovies; their eyeballs hung out of their sockets.
“It’s strange…” she said. “What I missed the most after stopping work over there was Cook Kim’s anchovy dishes. Remember? I always gave them to you. I never imagined myself sitting alone in the house, chewing on big dried anchovies. My husband brought them from China. Try them, Jia.”
She picked up the biggest one and bit off the head. She gave me one, and I cut half of it off with my front teeth. I asked her how I might buy a black-market travel permit. I assumed she knew about such things, as her husband secretly bought and sold outside goods in the market.
“Everything is possible if you have money,” Jiyun said, smiling. “I’ll ask my husband. Where are you going?”
I didn’t have any idea, but I had to make a plausible excuse. I felt the more remote the destination, the better.
“I have to go to Onsong. My aunt is there. She’s dying and wants to see me before her death. I want to leave as soon as possible, even tomorrow is fine.”
“I didn’t know you had a relative so far away.” Jiyun held her head at an angle. “Have you asked Seunggyu? He could definitely take you there. Then you wouldn’t have to waste your money.”
“No, and don’t talk about it if he asks,” I snapped. “He doesn’t want me to go—he’s worried. It’s far away and her disease might be contagious. I’m keeping it a secret from him.”
Jiyun nodded, lifting the little finger of her right hand to seal her silence. “What is her disease, then?”
At that time, paratyphoid fever and cholera were spreading all over the country. “She has cholera,” I told her.
Making her round eyes even more round, Jiyun tilted her head to the other side. “Now? Isn’t Onsong much colder than here? That’s strange. Paratyphoid fever would make sense, but cholera? Now?”
I hesitated. In a panic, I said, “Actually, I don’t remember exactly—maybe you’re right. When I got the news from her husband, I was so shocked. The disease wasn’t important.”
“Right, I understand. I’m sorry, Jia. I’ll urge my husband to hurry.”
I gave Jiyun enough money for the travel permit, and two days later I had it in my hands. For 50 US dollars you could get any kind of document made. I was grateful to my customers at the souvenir store for their generous tips. Though Americans were our enemies, American currency was our friend when we were in danger. Runaways who had American currency could afford brokers, who would make the journey to China much safer.
Jiyun’s husband kindly told me how to get to Onsong. I would have to travel to Hamhung first and then take a train to Onsong. There was a train from Pyongyang to Onsong, but it left infrequently and often broke down.
I had chosen Onsong, in the far northeast, because it was the farthest place from Pyongyang. Sinuiju, just northwest of Pyongyang, would have been the fastest escape for me, but it had already become a popular route for runaways, and the army was waiting for them at the border. At least, that’s what Seunggyu had confided in me.
I used the confidential information he gave me to abscond from him.
The night before I left, I looked slowly around my tiny home. It was the first place I could call my own, and I had tried to take care of it. Would I be able to return? I didn’t want to leave the flat in disarray, so I wiped down every nook and corner.
There was nothing left for me here. I didn’t own anything; I should have been the first to leave, not Sun or Gun.
I thought about Sunyoung for the first time in years. The look on her face and the sadness in her voice when we spoke in the restroom came back to me clearly; I could feel the pain in her heart, how lonely she must have been, and my heart filled with sadness. I wept that night, and watched the wall in the darkness, as Sunyoung might have done. I had always wondered whether she regretted her decision to follow her heart. The day she realized she had nothing and no one to lean on—how desperate she must have been!
Sunyoung’s tragedy had changed my life; I couldn’t deny it. Her bitter fate led me to close my eyes and ears. Like the other dancers, I felt that Sunyoung made a foolish decision, giving up the path of a comfortable life that had been offered to her to follow the passion that ultimately took her from me. Perhaps, with Seunggyu, I had hoped to choose the predictable life that Sunyoung had rejected. Listening to him, I had felt stable and safe; I felt that a happy life was possible.
How arrogant I had been! I had pretended to Seunggyu that my generous heart was the reason I felt sympathy for people who begged on the street, emboldened by the thought that I had been spared such wretchedness. The truth was that I was one of them, a trifling shell pushed by the waves this way and that. Seunggyu, when I saw him the last time at the hotel, recognized me for what I was.
The tears I cried that night weren’t for Seunggyu, or for the memory of Sunyoung. I couldn’t blame Seunggyu, after all, for betraying me, when I was the betrayer. I had the chance now to begin another journey in my life. I feared I would be unwelcome, yet again, in a new land, but I was resolved to fight.
Early the next morning, I tied the made-in-China lace-up shoes I had bought in the street market and set off for the Pyongyang train station. I was well layered in a thin white shirt and stockings, which I always wore for performances, two ivory sweaters, and thick brown pants. I wrapped my head in a dark-blue scarf and put on my oldest, worn-out coat. I tried to wear as much as possible, to keep my backpack light.
The streets were empty, and wind whistled through the alleys around my apartment. I got on my bicycle and rushed toward Ch’anggwang Street with my scarf pulled tight; I was afraid of being seen by anyone I knew. Crossing Taedong Bridge, Kaya Hotel and Pyongyang Station came into sight all at once. On any other day, I would have turned my bike to the right and headed for the hotel. But this wasn’t any other day.
My head down, I made an abrupt left turn as the station grew larger, expanding beyond my field of vision. The Great Leader was smiling at me from the picture above the entrance, and my eyes stayed fixed on him; the larger his face grew, the more convinced I became that he was not actually looking at me, but rather up and into the far distance. That comforted me.