Krys Lee - How I Became a North Korean

“You were looking for North Koreans the first day we met.” I recalled his disappointment when I told him I was a Joseon- jok . “Actually, that day—”

“You ever thought about what happens to them after crossing? They take on a new identity and name. They invent a biography for themselves — at least until they have to be more truthful so that someone like me can double-check their story and give them shelter. If they’re ever lucky enough to cross into a third country, most reinvent themselves all over again. But they’ll always be North Korean. The way they talk and think, the things they know and the things they don’t, their history wiped out in a new country — it marks them forever. They go to South Korea with their fantasies and are ashamed when they’re looked down at, or shocked when people suspect them of being spies, or act wary, or, worse, stop caring. I’ve seen it hundreds of times. They don’t have a choice, you see. Unlike you.”

My head snapped up.

“All this time, I believed you were an orphan, like me. How long were you going to continue with that story?”

He pulled a leaflet out of his jacket pocket and showed me the Chinese and Korean printing announcing a missing son, an image of myself mugging for the camera in a T-shirt printed with a bearded Leo Tolstoy. My palms became clammy.

He ripped up the flyer and let the two halves of my face flutter to his feet.

“I’m a man chosen by God to serve him, and by making a fool out of me, you’ve made a fool out of God.”

I anticipated, even hoped for, a slap across the face. He only flicked up his hand to check his watch.

The wind gusted in through the car windows, then stilled. It was as if God had come and spoken to us, but we didn’t know how to understand him. I felt the weight of what I’d put my parents through, my fear of facing them, and loneliness, the trough of turbulent feelings and fears that I couldn’t share with anyone.

I buried my face in my hands. “I’ll pack my things when we get back.”

“Where do you think you’re going?”

My head jerked up. “Aren’t you going to send me away?”

“Not until we move everyone out. It’s for everyone’s safety. We can’t let you out now that you know where the house is.”

“So I can’t leave?”

I was still digesting this when he handed me a cell phone, one he used for general phone calls. I called my dad, as the missionary had instructed, and, because I had no choice, let my abba know that I was still safe and that I would be home soon enough.

• • •

That night I rolled closer to Yongju’s back than before, until we were touching. With my chin against the braid of his backbone, I felt the rise and fall of his breathing. My body’s heat must have been comforting, for he didn’t retreat. I lay there trying not to think about anything, when his shoulders began to shake and I realized he was crying. I didn’t know what to do. Shudders continued to move through him.

I raised my hand and ventured to rub his back the way my mom used to do for me when I had the flu. I was electric with feeling. I was afraid of God. The pace of Yongju’s breathing slowed until he was asleep, but I stayed alert. How could I sleep, curved so close to his body’s fetal position, afraid and grateful, and finally, despite everything, content?

All sorts of black thoughts, and bright thoughts, continued their midnight invasion. I gave up on sleep and escaped to the common room. I didn’t know what to do, so I dropped to my knees in front of the hanging cross, closed my eyes, and prepared to embark on a great carpet of prayer for the North Koreans in their country to someday live free from tyranny. I wanted to pray that those responsible for countless crimes against their own people be punished, that the international community be more courageous, and especially that those hiding in China find the freedom they had risked so much for. I wanted to pray for Missionary Lee, for my family, my friends, and especially for myself. But the words wouldn’t come.

I got up. I wanted to be near Yongju; I wanted him safe. I did have choices. I finally crept into Missionary Lee’s room and began searching. It was easier than I’d thought, since his snoring covered up my small sounds. I moved a foot a minute, it seemed, my hand creeping through his drawers, his shelves, his suitcase pockets. Then I saw the cell phone and the solar charger on the windowsill.

The sky was at its darkest; in a few hours it would be day. From the common room I pressed in my mom’s number — the same one she’d had in America — before I lost courage. She might not know who to talk to or might not want to get involved; but with my hand cupped around my mouth, I did what I had to. I called.

It still hurts to remember how Jangmi was returned to us. When Missionary Kwon had proudly showed me the photos of his new women, I never dreamed Jangmi would be among them. But she was, and I persuaded the missionary to bring her to us. But then she entered behind him with her right foot in a cast and her eyes, dull as lumps of charred coal, gazing out as if there was nothing in the world left to look at. The heaviness she brought with her suffocated all my words. The woman who hovered behind Missionary Kwon like a harnessed ox was Jangmi but not Jangmi. The Jangmi I knew didn’t avoid your eyes but looked around defiantly, studying her surroundings and storing up information, the way the hunted do. The Jangmi I knew didn’t have a flat stomach.

Questions welled up inside me. What had happened to her? Where had he brought the others from? What had become of my eomma and dongsaeng ? My long hair prickled my neck, my armpits dampened with sweat. It was as if I had suddenly discovered my body. The story of her journey was written on hers: She limped ahead on a walking stick as if the floor was littered with nails. Her right leg was swollen above the plaster; mottled yellowed bruises banded around her forearm and disappeared up the sleeve of her baggy dress.

Daehan dropped the Bible flash cards he was trimming into perfect rectangles, scattering them like paper rain. His finger pointing at her was as straight as an arrow. “You’re the one who stole from us!”

He surged ahead with accusations, but it was as if she couldn’t hear him, couldn’t see any of it: the saang we ate on that wobbled on its fourth leg, the stacks of banseok we sat on to cushion the floor, the bookshelf lined with black Bibles and hymnals, our names branded on them. The others and me.

Gwangsu got up so quickly that he fell and hit his head on the saang .

“Pretty nuna .” Cheolmin’s voice was so sharp it could have honed knives. “When was the last time we saw you? Oh, I remember! When you betrayed us!”

“What’s she doing here?” Bakjun chimed in.

“Keep your mouths shut,” Missionary Kwon said. “Thanks to Jangmi, I was able to help a number of other girls to my shelters, but she needed special attention — medical attention.” He meant the Christian doctor he trusted who lived in the area.

Her solitude was impenetrable; she didn’t once look at Missionary Kwon during this speech or when he told Missionary Lee, “It was one of our most expensive rescue missions.”

Cheolmin looked as if he would take her apart piece by piece with his jagged teeth. “So there’s enough money to pay for a load of women, but not enough to get us out of China?”

“Look here,” I said. “She’s one of us. She needed help. That’s what matters.”

Cheolmin snorted, all residual respect for my age and status, all hope, gone. Only Namil smiled at Jangmi, showing the threads of lunch’s blanched spinach trapped between his teeth, then shrugged his shoulders.