Hyejin Kim: Jia: A Novel of North Korea

I stood up; I must have seen a phantom on the street, not Gun. The moment I walked toward the door to leave, there were three cautious knocks, then one more, exactly as he’d said. As soon as I opened the door, Gun swept in, locked the door, and plopped himself down on the floor.

“Are you okay? Gun—what’s happened? Is someone chasing you? Gun? You can’t imagine how happy I am to see you again.”

He looked up at me and gave me a tight smile. “I wondered if it was really you when I saw you. When did you get here? You look good. You don’t look like a North Korean woman at all. That’s why I had to follow you for a while. It took time to figure it out.”

He had always been dark, but his gloomy face made him seem even darker; his cheeks had sunk deep into the hollows below his cheekbones.

“I’ve been here several months,” I told him excitedly. “How have you been? Do you live here? Oh—so many things to ask… How are your parents? Is everything all right?” As I spoke, his eyes darted back and forth.

He smiled bitterly and said, “My father is dead and my mother has been seriously sick since he passed away.”

Putting down my bag, I sat next to him and grabbed his hand. “I’m so sorry, Gun. But I’m so happy to see you again in this life. Did you come back to China right after you visited your uncle’s house?”

I wanted to ask about Sun—whether he had found her or not—but hesitated. I decided to bring up other topics that came to mind instead.

He slipped his hand out of mine. “Many things happened after that,” he said darkly. He paused and kept his eyes on the ground. It became clear nothing had gone as he had planned. Who dared to make plans anymore? He raised his eyes to mine briefly and said, “I found Sun here too.”

My body tensed when I heard Sun’s name. I grabbed his hand again and squeezed it more tightly. “Where is she? Are you with Sun now? Can I see her?”

Gun just gave me a vacant stare. “You can’t see her anymore.”

As I clung to Gun’s words, I realized that the fate I so hoped Sun would escape had in fact befallen her.

The night Sun left Pyongyang, she headed for Kaesant’un, a village close to the border. She’d been told that Kaesant’un was the place to cross the border by a Korean-Chinese vendor in a street market, a woman she had paid to help her. The journey had gone well; the last barrier was the river.

Sun saw some soldiers at the border chatting and smoking. She didn’t know what to do, and waited for a while, hoping they would leave. The river didn’t look as difficult to cross as she feared, but she knew stepping onto Chinese land was strictly prohibited. Sun had never violated the law in her life, and her legs were trembling. In that moment, Sun regretted not having told me where she was headed. I treated her as a younger sister, and she had been afraid I would not let her leave, or would tell her parents. If Sun had convinced me, though, I might have left with her; two would have been better than one. But it was too late for regrets.

She decided to wait until all the soldiers were gone. When they returned to their post to eat, she would have a chance to sneak into the river and swim across. The current looked a bit fast and the water was high, but the river wasn’t too wide, and Sun was confident of her swimming skills. After crossing, she would look for Gun. The Korean-Chinese vendor had told her many North Koreans lived in Korean-Chinese villages and received help from Korean-Chinese people. She would go to Yanji, a city in China near the border, and ask for help.

While Sun waited for the appropriate time, she hid behind some buildings. She wondered how her parents were, and thought how disappointed they would be at her disappearance. She missed them so much. She waited, watching the sky. Cotton clouds floated smoothly overhead and into the distance over China. Sun sighed, thinking how good it would be to cross the river on those clouds.

Her mind drifted along for a time, and soon she was standing in the middle of an unfamiliar street. As she looked around to figure out where she was, she saw Gun walk past along a narrow curb. The road quickly filled with people walking quickly in the same direction. She tried to follow Gun, but she was shoved back and forth by the flood of human bodies and couldn’t catch him. She called after him repeatedly. Suddenly, he turned back and their eyes met. She beckoned him to come toward her, but he only stared at her, as if at a stranger, before disappearing in the crowd. His figure grew smaller and smaller. She cried out again and again, but he was gone.

People passing by stopped and glared at Sun with red, unblinking eyes as big as half their faces.

With a startle, Sun awoke and came to her senses. She realized that she had called out to Gun in reality, not just in the dream. She felt chilled, and thought it might be night; she couldn’t feel the sun or see the sky. Then, gaining her bearings, she realized that the daylight was being blocked by shadows looming over her. Dark faces moved down to hers—someone had heard her cry out in her dream.

The strange men wore uniforms and said they were soldiers, but they didn’t arrest Sun. She was taken to a building near the border. They were polite to her, asking her why she wanted to go to China and whether she traveled alone or with others. She was too afraid to answer, but they gave her food and hot water and even asked her whether she needed money. She finally confessed that she was going to China to look for her boyfriend. They warned her how dangerous the place was for a woman, and told her it would be impossible to find her boyfriend by herself. They said they might help her and introduce her to some people over there. She was ecstatic—China would not be as scary as people said! After conversing with her for a while, one of the men left in a hurry.

Several hours later, the man returned with two others. One of them addressed her politely in Korean and told her that they could help her because they lived in China and took care of many North Koreans out of pity. She cried and thanked him profusely. They asked her how old she was, where she lived, and what job she had. They were angry when they heard about Gun abandoning her and criticized him harshly. She wasn’t happy about that, but she appreciated their help nevertheless. Sun felt no one could be as lucky as she was.

She crossed the border with them safely—and she didn’t have to swim, because they brought a small boat. They took her to a house where she could stay while they tried to find Gun. They gave her new clothes and cosmetics to prepare her for Gun’s visit. Sun’s heart overflowed with gratitude, and she gave all her money to them as a token of her appreciation. She was in a flutter, waiting for him.

Several days later, a man came to take her away from there, but the man who came was not Gun. He was a big, middle-aged Chinese man. Young, pretty, and unmarried, Sun was sold for 10,000 yuan. Her kidnappers were happy with the price. She didn’t understand what was going on until the Chinese man dragged her to his car with a leer. Struggling to get away from him, she looked at her kidnappers in disbelief. They only snickered; one patted her on the hip and said, “He’ll make you much happier than your stupid boyfriend.” She writhed and yelled at them to release her from the fat Chinese man’s grasp. But it was too late.

Gun took a cigarette from the pocket of his shirt. Recounting Sun’s story to me had taken its toll on him; he looked tired and dejected. He lit the cigarette and took a few drags. When I had last seen him, he didn’t smoke; now he had turned into a chain-smoker.