All this is punishment, rained down upon you by our God.
Swallowing the blood that kept rising up in my throat, I gurgled, Believe in the God of Chosŏn.
I could hear Yohan laughing behind me.
Goddamn bastard. Still have breath to spare, eh? An illiterate fool, but now that you’ve listened to a couple of lectures you talk ready and smooth, is that it?
Just then, a shout rang through the village.
We caught the Mole!
Yohan turned to his men.
All right. Haul this piece of shit Ichiro back into town.
And so I ended up living one more day, hanging on just long enough to experience that fiery hell.
It wasn’t me that saw them coming — it was my wife. She was in the yard hiding some of our food in a hole we dug the night before. Our house was pretty close to Illang’s, but we were a little bit higher up. I’d been away from home for a few days, but when I got the order to evacuate from the Department of Defense, I came home to pack the things we couldn’t do without and dig the hole so we could hide the more important stuff, like the sewing machine, our radio, and a bagful of rice. We didn’t actually get to bed until after midnight. Then suddenly my wife was opening the door of the bedroom, yelling up a storm.
Men! Lots of them! They’re coming into the village, and they’ve got guns!
I sprang to my feet, put on a shirt, and rushed out into the yard. I could hear crying and wailing coming from all over the place — it had already begun. My wife pushed me back inside.
Hurry, she hissed. You have to get out of here! It’s those Jesus freaks.
I raced around the house into the backyard, tore the rough hedge fence apart, and fled. I ran for my life, tearing up the hill behind our house. I meant to go all the way over it, but the trails were so steep that I was soon stumbling, panting horribly. I was leaning up against a rock, trying to catch my breath, when I heard them yelling from down below.
Sunnam, you son of a bitch! We know you’re up there!
Come down or we’ll kill your whole family!
How could I keep going? My wife, she wasn’t even from around there. She used to be a worker at a sock factory in Pyongyang. All her life, she’d known nothing but hardship — she started working when she was twelve, taking care of her parents and her younger brothers and sisters. I met her at one of the Party training sessions. We both belonged to the lowest class, so neither of us had anything to our names but our bare hands. We had two children, a three year old and a tiny new baby, just like Comrade Pak Illang’s little family. I trudged on back down. As soon as I got near my house, a couple of them rushed me, striking me on the back with the butts of their rifles. I fell to the ground.
We caught the Mole!
The shout seemed to come from far, far away.
Uncle Sunnam’s face was already soaked in blood from being beaten by several different men. By the time I got there, everything had already been taken care of. His hands were tied behind his back with a telephone cord, and he was on his knees. I glanced at him, but he dropped his head when our eyes met. I looked over the hedge fence and saw his wife squatting down on the ground, looking as if she’d been frightened out of her senses, blood streaming down from her nose. The older kid was right next to her, and the younger one was sitting on the ground. I guess they knew somehow that they shouldn’t cry too loudly; they were just moaning quietly. Sunnam had played with us when we were all just kids, hanging around the neighborhood, and he’d never been directly involved in any village conflict — no one really had a personal grudge against him. Still, he’d been involved with the so-called peacekeeping troops in town from the very beginning, so everyone felt kind of intimidated by him. His wife was a member of the Women’s League, but she’d always gotten along pretty well with the other women in the village. We hesitated.
Should we take them to town?
The man in charge of searching the house was the first to ask the question. We all knew, though, what would happen to them if we took them in. The young ones on our side had their eyes peeled for opportunities like these — they were dying for a chance to get their hands on a real Red. It didn’t take me long to decide. All it took was two little words.
Shoot them.
A couple of men turned and ran back inside the fence. I heard them cock their guns. Then came the shots. I didn’t look back. When the men shoved Sunnam, he fell into step, leading the way down the village road. We got to the village entrance. Illang, with his newly pierced nose and his party were waiting for us. The whole lot of us formed a line and began marching towards town down the new road. Wet fog spread out over the stream like a blanket of smoke. The eulalias were in full bloom, white against the stream banks. I was walking in front of Uncle Sunnam when I heard his deep voice address me from behind.
Yohan, can I have a word with you?
I just turned and looked at him.
What’s the point of going all the way to town? Please. Kill me here.
I stopped walking. I wanted to put some distance between Illang’s party, who continued on their way, and our group. I turned to the young men from Kwangmyŏng Church who stopped with me.
Let’s finish him off here.
But he’s a key figure — do you think that’d be wise?
We’re going to be killing them all later on, anyway. Don’t worry. Tell the guys up front to go on ahead.
Sending a man to the front to let them know what was going on, I took out a cigarette. I lit it and held it to Sunnam’s lips.
Go ahead. Take a puff.
Greedily, Sunnam took the cigarette between his lips, inhaled deeply, and let the smoke come out his nose. I lit another for myself.
Well, you certainly are a sight to see — and to think how you used to go around with your nose stuck up in the air. You shouldn’t have played the Red game.
Sunnam stood there without saying a word, just smoking his cigarette. He spat it out when it was only half done. With a deep sigh, he looked up at the sky. Tears streamed down his cheeks. Without facing him directly, I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and said, Why the tears?
It’s just the smoke.
My companions began to prod me.
Let’s just get this over with and move on.
I spotted a utility pole along the stream bank. I turned to the boys.
String him up over there.
Was I remembering that time with the dog, that day I followed him down to the stream during the Tano Festival?41 The guys unraveled one of the telephone cords they always had tied around their waists for easy access and shaped it into a noose. As one of the men pulled the noose down over his head from behind, Sunnam said, Yohan, can I ask you a favor?
What is it?
Please — bury me with my family.
I didn’t answer. I just gave the signal to my men. They tossed the other end of the telephone cord over one of the pins that stuck out of the utility pole and pulled with every ounce of strength they had. With a strange gurgle, Sunnam’s body was suddenly up in the air, his legs flailing. At first the men stood there and hung onto their end of the cord, but then they just tied it off on one of the pins farther down and left it. We all hung around for a while, waiting for Sunnam to die. Every time it looked like he might finally be gone, his limp body dangling silently for a moment, his legs would jerk again and the struggle would start all over again. Blood oozed from the cut under his chin where the wire cut into his flesh and trickled down the nape of his neck. I pulled my gun out from the waist of my trousers and aimed at his heart. I fired.