Hwang Sok-yong - Princess Bari

*

Bari- ya ! Hey, Bari! It’s me!

Someone calls to me through the dark. I see two blue, glowing lights. I know at once that it is Chilsung. I have seen him in my dreams now and then over the past few years, but this is the first time he has spoken to me just as he did in life. A ring of milky-white light, like moonlight, appears in the blackness and wobbles as it widens. At the end of this tunnel of light, Chilsung wags his snowy white tail and waits for me.

He takes off running, glancing back occasionally and pausing so I can catch up.

Stop running , I say. Stand still .

Someone’s waiting for you.

We reach a riverbank. The water looks black. A silent breeze passes over us and kicks up a cloud of dust. There is a long bridge, and at the entrance to the bridge stands a woman dressed all in white. It is too dark at first to make out her features, but as I step closer a light seems to shine forth from her and a familiar face appears.

Our little Bari is here!

Grandma! Where’ve you been?

I take a step forward to hug her, but she drifts back exactly one step, lightly, like a plastic bag filled with air. I take another step, and she drifts back again.

I’ve missed you so much, and now you won’t even hug me.

Grandmother smiles and nods.

I know. I wish I could. But I’m in this world now, and you’re in that world. I called you here because I was worried about you. Now, pay attention to what I’m about to tell you. You’re going to travel thousands and thousands of li across the ocean and across the sky. This path will lead you through Hell, filled with the clamour of toads and the ravings of demons and the spirits of the dead. You could wind up torn to pieces. But whatever you do, stay away from the blue and yellow paths. Always take the white path. When your journey is complete, you’ll no longer be little Bari. You’ll be Bari, the great shaman. I will help you as much as I can, so whenever you’re in trouble, Chilsung will guide you to me.

*

Grandmother, Chilsung and the foggy riverbank vanished, and everything went white before my eyes. Someone was shining a torch at us.

“Raise your hand as you call out your number. Start at that end.”

The man sitting at the far end of the wall raised his hand and said one . The woman next to him was slow to react. After a beat, she mumbled t-two , and someone stepped in front of the man with the torch and slammed her head against the wall.

“Again!”

This time, everyone called out three, four, five and so on, in quick succession. There were twelve people altogether.

“You little snakes all know your numbers? Those are your names from now on.”

I was Number Eleven, and Xiang was Number Twelve. Judging by the voices, there were four women and eight men.

“I’m the one responsible for getting you safely to your destination. Your lives are in our hands. Don’t forget that. If you don’t do as we say immediately, we’ll throw you overboard. In a few days, we’re going to dock briefly at Xiamen, in Fujian Province. Until then, you will not move from this spot. You’ll get one meal every morning and one bucket of water that you’ll all have to ration. You’re each responsible for your own survival. It takes one month to reach England. If you can survive the last ten days upon arrival, then you’ll get to set foot in a new land and make all the money you want. Right before we reach Xiamen, I’ll explain what you have to do.”

They gave each of us a single ball of rice and fed us a cup of water. They also designated a spot for us to relieve ourselves: just inside the entrance to the cargo hold in the belly of the ship, they’d set up a metal drum that had been sawed in half and placed a couple of wooden boards over it. At first we all slept sitting up against the walls, but after a while negotiations were made, and everyone was able to sleep lying down in the narrow spaces between the containers by placing their legs between one another’s legs. For the first few days it was too dark to see anyone, but later we got just enough light seeping in from above during the day that we were able to learn each other’s faces. Twenty more joined us in Xiamen. Like us, they were brought aboard just before the ship departed. We had to stay hidden for two days while more containers were loaded. The snakeheads divided us up and stuffed us inside the already-packed containers. We really were like snakes, as we had to burrow deep into the tiny crevices between the packed freight loads. We had to remain standing the whole time, though we were able to take the weight off of our legs a little bit by wedging our upper bodies in, and we had to urinate and defecate in place as well. There was no food, of course, but we also weren’t given so much as a drop of water to drink.

Right before the boat set sail again, we were pulled out of the containers while new people were smuggled aboard. No one could walk. We crawled back to our spots and sprawled out on the floor. When the woman who’d had her head smacked against the wall for not calling her number out properly was brought out of the container, she could not stand up again; somewhere in the South China Sea, she died. The snakeheads picked her up by her head and legs and carried her out. Number Eight grew so weak that she had to be helped to the toilet each time. Xiang and I were still young, and fortunately had a little strength to spare. The people who boarded in Xiamen sat between the rows of containers next to ours; most of them were young, too. There seemed to be about seven or eight women among them. As the ship crossed the equator, we entered the fiery level of Hell, and thirst and starvation slowly turned people into animals.

I stripped off my shell of a body more than once during those long days of darkness and followed Chilsung down the white path to see my grandmother. Once, after coming to briefly and taking a look around, I realized that the world of the dead was no different from the place I was in. I travelled in the ship through the different layers of the otherworld.

I lay with my eyes closed and my back pressed to the bottom of the ship as it rose and fell with the waves, the din of machinery constant, and let my spirit rise into the air. It was indeed like slipping out of a shell, or removing a garment. It didn’t make a sound, but there was a sensation like soft fabric tearing each time I shed my body and drifted about in the dark.

Then Chilsung would appear, his white fur dazzling my eyes as he wagged his tail in front of me. We would walk single-file along the white path that hovered in the blackness like a belt of moonlight. After a long walk, we would arrive at a riverbank, where a light breeze blew and a bridge arched over the river. The water looked black as tar. Only the bridge was illuminated, as if by lamplight, and Grandmother would come across it, the hem of her white skirt swaying.

Bari, come this way.

When Grandmother walked back over the bridge, it lit up with all the colours of the rainbow. Chilsung walked ahead of me. I followed him across this rainbow bridge. Just then, I heard voices coming from the dark water below, voices crying out to be saved. A woman’s ragged screams. Weeping and wailing. Groans of pain. A baby bawling. Voices moaning under the lash. Dying breaths. Teeth chattering as voices cried out about the cold. Shrill screams following one after the other, wailing about the heat. Hollow giggles from going mad. I could barely bring myself to cross the bridge.

Don’t listen, and don’t look down. If you stray from the path, you’ll lose all your good karma.