All Woman and Springtime (33 page)

“Where are we going?” asked Jasmine.

“You’ll know when you get there.”

“How is Kang?” Cho burst out suddenly, like a cork giving way under pressure. She had been trying to hold the question in, but she no longer had the strength. She looked as if she might cry.

“Oh, you care about him now, do you? You should have thought about that before you reshaped his skull,” Mr. Choy said venomously. “Kang is alive. Barely. They say he is going to have permanent motor damage, though it’s too early to know how bad. He’s in and out of consciousness. Are you satisfied?”

Cho hung her head, holding back a wave of tears. She did not want to give Mr. Choy the satisfaction of her regret. She wished it had been him. She wondered if she would feel bad if she had smashed his head instead.

As they walked out of the apartment, Gyong-ho reached for her portrait of the Dear Leader—she did not want to be without him. But then she thought of the new
Chosun
girls who would be arriving. She thought about how confused and frightened and alone they would be, so far from home. They needed him more than she did, she decided, and left the portrait where it was. Maybe it would offer some comfort.

Mr. Choy made the women walk in single file down to the street, flanked by the bouncers. At the curb was the dented minivan in which they had arrived in South Korea from the DMZ.

“This is where we say good-bye,” said Mr. Choy with melodrama. “I know how much you’ll miss me. I’ll completely forget you in a couple of weeks, but you’ll remember me forever.”

That statement made Gyong-ho seethe. She knew it was true, that he would always be a scar on her soul that she would feel and remember every day. She also knew that he would forget them, like a man forgets a thousand other little business decisions made in the construction of the big picture. That he knew it too, yet still inflicted his abuses, put the final punctuation on his evil. He was a man festering with hate, and his very cells lacked the organelles of compassion that, collectively, gave a person conscience. Gyong-ho had suffered torture, humiliation, subservience, and sexual abuse, and yet had never, until now, felt hatred. She could see that all of her previous abusers had, in some way, been victims themselves, acting through the pain that the world had dealt them, and she could forgive them. But Mr. Choy was not a victim and she could not forgive him.

Hate burned like acid, corroding her innocence even more than the sexual acts he had forced her to commit. Hate demanded vengeance and retribution, the million acts of which cascaded through her imagination in images of violence and pain. With every drop of hate that condensed inside her, something else, pure and wholesome, was squeezed out. It was an infection that she had caught from him, making her blister inside—she would never again be free of it.

She locked her eyes on his, and he was momentarily transfixed. Coming from such a meek and broken girl the power of her gaze took him by surprise. Maybe, if he had not been coming down from amphetamines, he would have been immune to it; but he was weak and depressed and exhausted. He was blindsided by her stark, wordless honesty and became lost in her eyes. They were terrible, beautiful eyes. She released the essence of her soul with full force into her eyes and showed him the hate he had bequeathed her. For one crystal clear moment he could feel the horror of what he was spreading in the world. He stepped back, as if punched. She had infected him with something too.

60

M
R
.
L
EE
SLICED
HIS
way through the city in the minivan, the four captive women subdued and sullen, crammed together on the bench seat in the back. After an hour of driving through traffic, well into the outskirts of the city, they came to an area dominated by warehouses and industry. Smoke belched from factories, and the view was overwhelmed by large, blocky buildings with iron beams and no windows. The van pulled into one of the many indistinguishable tin-clad structures.

Inside the warehouse was a semi truck with a twenty-foot steel shipping container strapped to its bed. There was a long ramp leading from the ground to the bed of the truck, and men were scurrying about, stacking boxes at its side.

“Get out,” Mr. Lee ordered, and the women piled out of the van. A short, thin man with a permanent stoop scurried up to Mr. Lee.

“Everything’s ready, sir. Just like you asked.” The man’s voice was high and nasal. He oozed sycophantically, carrying himself in a way that reminded Gyong-ho of a dog humping the leg of his master.

“Is there enough food and water? One of them died last time,” said Mr. Lee.

“Yes, sir. I remember,” the man said, lowering his head and raising his left hand. His little finger had been amputated at the second knuckle. “I’ll never make that mistake again.”

“Good. Let’s have a look,” said Mr. Lee, walking to the ramp in the back of the truck. He and the man disappeared into the shipping container. A minute later they reemerged. “I think that should be fine,” said Mr. Lee. The man looked relieved, unconsciously rubbing the knuckles of his left hand.

“Okay, girls, listen up,” Mr. Lee said. “You’re going inside that container, and you will be in there for a couple of weeks. There should be enough food and water, but use them conservatively or you will die. Do you understand?”

The women nodded.

“Alright. Put them inside,” Mr. Lee commanded.

PART III

61

I
L
-
SUN
VOMITED
INTO
THE
bucket. She had been doing that on and off for days, and Gyong-ho assumed that it was due to the constant pitching and rolling of the shipping container. They were at sea. Gauging by the alternating light and dark that filtered in through the small vent holes at the top of the container, the ship had sailed for two days before docking again; and Gi had hoped, in spite of what Mr. Lee had said about how much time to expect inside, that they would be released soon. For a little more than a week, by Gi’s count, the ship sat at dock. By day she could hear the rumble of heavy machinery, and by night a ghostly quiet. Then, once again, they took to the sea.

Each day, under the sun, they baked inside the hot steel box, and each night they froze. They were shut into a special compartment at the end of the container, their quarters cramped and unyielding. The air in the small room became thick with the odor from their unwashed bodies, and from the waste barrel that was lashed to the back of the container. The waste barrel’s vent to the outside seemed to do little to eliminate the smell. They made a great effort to conserve their water, drinking only when the thirst became unbearable, and only enough to moisten the insides of their mouths. Even so, their water barrel was emptying at an alarming rate. The constant and unpredictable movement caused by the churning of the sea brought on bouts of nausea in all the women, especially when the seesawing became particularly intense. It was constantly dark, the only light coming from the vent holes and a single flashlight with failing batteries. The vent holes served to keep them from suffocating but did little to circulate the stale air. Darkness and uncertainty and the unceasing bombardment of foul smells made time come to a near standstill. There was nothing to do to absorb the impact of time, and it thrummed endlessly onward. Their food was a salty assortment of nuts, crackers, dried fruits, and packaged goods—all things to compound their thirst—and the women cursed whomever had provided for them. After the first week their bowels had become solidified, painful rocks in their bellies.

Shortly after they set sail, Cho got her period. Nothing was furnished for this inevitability, another ignorant oversight of the men who provided for their journey. It was decided that they would relegate one of their precious blankets to the job of absorbing the expelled blood, adding to the already pungent atmosphere. A few days later, Jasmine had to sit with the blanket bunched between her legs.

“I suppose you’ll be next,” Cho said to Il-sun, trying to bring levity to the situation, as well as to alleviate her own embarrassment.

If they could have seen Il-sun’s face, the other women would have watched her turn white. The silence that followed spoke volumes.

“You will be getting your period, won’t you?” asked Jasmine.

Again, Il-sun responded with silence.

“You’re not pregnant?” asked Cho, shocked.

Il-sun broke down, sobbing. Jasmine put her arm around her and squeezed, and no one spoke for several minutes. Finally, the crying subsided enough for Il-sun to squeak out a few words.

“I haven’t had my period, and I’m usually very regular. My breasts keep getting bigger, even though I haven’t eaten much. I get sick every day,” she said through her tears.

“But how? I thought you said they weren’t making you pull tricks,” Jasmine asked.

Silence.

“Mr. Choy?” asked Jasmine.

“No,” replied Il-sun, almost inaudibly.

“Gianni?” asked Cho, incredulity, and perhaps jealousy, in her voice.

Il-sun nodded, even though the other women could not see her, and sobbed with renewed vigor.

Gi felt as if someone had hit her over the head. Gianni had made love to the beautiful Il-sun; and Il-sun had allowed it, even welcomed it. She thought back to the night at the orphanage when she had wrapped herself around Il-sun, not even fully aware of what she was doing, and she cringed. Maybe if she had read
John and Daisy
she would have known better what to do, and Il-sun would have acquiesced. She had lain with a man, when lying with a man was an optional, innocent thing to do. She was ahead in the race for experience, and in some small, competitive way, Gi felt jealous of that too. On top of it all, she felt jealous that Il-sun was now going to be a mother. Her child would be supreme in her affections, and there would be yet another layer between herself and Il-sun.

And then she hated herself for these feelings. Il-sun was in pain, facing the onerous task of raising a child in the uncertainty of her situation. They had no idea where they were going, though they knew it was far, far away. Would she be able to care for herself, let alone a small child? Would she be bringing the child into a world of happiness, or a world fraught with pain and hardship? There must be a million uncomfortable questions boiling inside Il-sun’s mind, and she needed support.
Perhaps,
Gyong-ho thought,
I can be a second parent, like a father, to the child. Maybe this is how I can be close with Il-sun
.

Il-sun’s pregnancy gave the women an excuse to feel happiness, which they clung to after so many days—about two weeks since they left Seoul, by Gi’s best guess—in the dark privation of the container. It helped them take their minds off their thirst and hunger. They enjoyed doting on Il-sun, and insisted on increasing her comfort, even at their own expense. Gi vowed to drink less water so that Il-sun could take extra. Il-sun was given a blanket to cushion the rough wood floor, and they insisted that, for hygienic reasons, she sleep farthest away from the waste barrel. Il-sun tried at first to protest the added luxuries, but Jasmine reminded her that it was for her baby, the uncounted fifth person in the room, and she gave in.

The journey continued, seemingly without end, and the monotony of it chipped away at their sanity. Each of them went through phases of babbling, giggling, crying, and testiness. The constant darkness caused them to have vivid hallucinations, and at times it became difficult for them to distinguish between dreaming and waking. For a whole day Gyong-ho insisted that Foreman Hwang had come into the container demanding that they mend his torn trousers. For hours she would not believe that it did not happen. Finally she realized the absurdity of what she was saying and fell into a sullen quiet.

Even Gyong-ho had lost count of time, though she knew it had been weeks, and they were scraping the bottom of the second water barrel. The women felt weak and had no energy left for talking. Their tongues were as good as cemented to the roofs of their mouths for lack of saliva, their heads ached from dehydration, and their lips were cracked. They remained lying down, in spite of the painful sores that had developed where their bones rubbed away their skin against the floor. Gi would have been happy to let herself slip from life, but the thought of Il-sun and her unborn baby kept her from giving over to death completely. Of the women, she was the only one who maintained enough will to live to continue going to the water barrel. So she brought water to the others, keeping them just barely alive. She gave Il-sun twice the amount of water—it could have been counted in drops—and made sure she ate at least a little. The others had stopped eating completely. She knew that in a matter of days they would all be dead.