A Dream of Lights (6 page)

From under the window I heard the shouts of the men as they entered my home, heard my family’s quiet replies, but I didn’t know where to go, or what to do. Couldn’t think where I would be safe or how I could hide. They would know I was missing, come looking for me, hunt me down.

I couldn’t go to Sook’s house, or to the school, or to a neighbour. Or to a friend, or a colleague of my father’s. Nobody would protect me. Nobody would risk their lives for me. I was the only person I could rely on.

But I was scared. So scared. They were going to look out of the window, they were going to find me, they were going to take me away and kill me. And it was all,
all
, my fault.

If only
, I thought. A million
if onlys.

But something took hold of me, some survival instinct or fear, some voice in my head, and forced me to think and to act. There was a gap under the house close to me, a hole that maybe an animal had dug, and I squeezed myself into it, pulling the soft earth around me, smearing it on to my face, scooping up mud and dead leaves and branches on top of me. Surely they wouldn’t think I’d hide so close.

I pulled off a shoe, throwing it as far as I could, hoping they’d see it, think I’d lost it when I was running, think I’d gone in that direction.

My heart thudded and pounded in my chest and my arms and my head. Shouting came from inside the house. My grandmother’s voice pleading. My mother’s crying. Male voices barking, demanding –
Where is your daughter?

Silence. A scream. A thud. A sob.

What have you been burning?
they shouted. And there came no reply.

I was a coward, hiding in the dirt and soil from what I had caused, while my family suffered, protecting me.

Voices shouted about South Korea, about escape, about crimes against our Dear Leader. Threats of re-education through labour, prison camps, trials and execution. I shook with fear, tears stinging my eyes, my vision a blur.

What have I done?

I squeezed my eyes closed, wished I could block out what I could hear. I wanted to scream, run inside and tear them to pieces, shout and spit in their faces. There was nothing,
nothing
, I could do but sit and hide and listen.

Guilt tore through me. And I hated Sook.

With every part of my being, I hated him. With every breath I pulled, I thought of how he had betrayed me. How stupid I had been to trust him. To think he might actually care for me. I could see now how it had all been a trick, an elaborate hoax, a game.

I despised him.

Of course, why else would Min-Jee have let him have the food for me? She’d known all along. He had played me, and I was stupid enough to fall for it. I boiled with anger, at myself and at him. My mother’s cries sounded through the walls, and I burrowed further into the hole, wishing I could escape from what I’d caused. I hid like an animal because I was one.

Yet they
were
traitors, just like the boy with the radio, and they deserved to be punished. That was what I’d been taught for a lifetime.

But they’re not bad people
, my head screamed,
and I love them so much, and I know they’re guilty, punishable in the eyes of our government, but they’re my family, they just made a mistake.

The guards shouted my name again, but no reply came. I heard the door slam, the traipsing of boots, the muttering of soldiers, heard them barge into the neighbours’ house, questions shouted, orders given.

I felt terror. Pure, absolute terror.

I heard voices closer, feet nearby, frosty grass crunching underneath them, smelt cigarette smoke and boot leather. I opened my eyes a crack, peering out, watching two men, certain they would spot the whites of my eyes. I drew myself back, hidden so low, so small, that surely,
surely
, they wouldn’t think I’d be this close.

Their feet came towards me, and I slowed my breathing, desperate for my thumping heart not to give me away. I could see the cigarette dangling in one man’s fingers, the smoke curling outwards, drifting towards me, like it was hunting me down, pointing to where I was hidden. I felt it tickle my nose, irritate the back of my throat.

Don’t cough
, I told myself. I held my nose, cupped my hands round my mouth. My throat itched, I needed to cough. I watched the men. Watched them… watched them… waiting… waiting.

I heard the man’s lips drag on the butt, watched his fingers flick the cigarette to the ground and saw it land in front of me. My throat burned, the cough stuck there, the cigarette smoke pointing me out. I was going to cough, I knew it, and they would hear me, and they would catch me, and we would be gone. All of us. A family stopped in time.

A boot squashed the butt into the ground and I watched the soldier turn, my hands clasped round my mouth as I swallowed and swallowed, and I saw them reach the corner. And I coughed. But they didn’t turn. They had seen the shoe.

They walked away and I breathed again.

I stayed hidden for hours, my brain imagining what my ears thought they could hear – my family taken away, signs hammered into roadsides advertising tomorrow’s public trial, soldiers threatening neighbours who might be harbouring me, gossip muttered about what we had done.

I didn’t hear Min-Jee, and I didn’t hear Sook.

The air grew more chill and I watched the sun set and the village seep into darkness. I emerged from my hiding place after more than twelve hours, my arms and legs creaking and stretching like a spider appearing from a hole.

I felt the eeriness around me as I walked, a million eyes from windows and doors, or behind trees and bushes, or staring down at me from the stars: my neighbours, my friends, our Dear Leader.

Watching.

Waiting.

The dark was my friend, holding me and hiding me, escorting me as I stepped round the block of houses, ducking low under neighbours’ windows, hoping that every foot I put down was in silence. The half-moon slipped behind clouds, and with wide eyes, I reached my hands out in front of me, using my instincts and my memory to find my way.

I made it to the front of the houses, feeling along the walls without a sound, my breath measured and controlled. I counted the windows and doors as I moved across, my eyes closed as I concentrated, stopping at the third house along – my house.

Was
it my house? Or was I about to open the door on my neighbours? I re-counted the numbers in my head, drew my hands across the wooden door, feeling the splinters, the flakes of paint, the knot in the wood that my fingers recognised – my home. I eased down the handle and stepped inside, closing the door behind me.

I didn’t know what I had expected. For my parents to be there? Or my grandparents? Asleep on the mats as they always were, the noise of their breathing, the creaking of the house as it cooled from the fire? There was nothing.

I felt around the room – the table had gone, the chairs too. I edged to the kitchen cupboards, still there, creaked open the doors and put my hand inside – no cups, no plates, no bowls, no food. With my arms outstretched, I went into the other room, dropped down to my knees and crawled across the floor – the beds had gone, the cupboards, everything.

And my family.

All of them.

In the corner of the room I huddled my knees to my chest, making myself as small as possible. I wanted to fade into the walls and disappear into the background. I didn’t deserve to be here, alive.

My guilt tore at me while the night drew on. I slipped in and out of sleep, dreams and nightmares haunting me, leading me through questions and scenarios, torturing me with memories I couldn’t bear to recall while awake.

And of course I saw that city of my dreams again. The city on the postcard. And again I was walking through it, a lightness about me and a smile on my face. But how could I be happy? That dream, and my stupidity, had caused all of this.

I woke with tears on my cheeks and no breath in my chest.

I sat in silence as the sun began to rise again, watching the long shadows withdraw from the floor and a murky light begin to fill the empty house. Too many memories came back to me, and I rested my hands on the walls that had held my childhood and I knew it was all over.

It was no longer my home; my family were no longer there to fill it and never would be again. Soon it would be given to someone else, everything owned by the state, nothing by the individual.

I knew I had to go, and soon, knew if I stayed there, in the house, in the village, I would be found before nightfall. Could be dead by the next morning.
I should’ve gone earlier
, I thought,
when I could still hide in the dark.

I stood up and found another pair of shoes: my grandmother’s, old and worn and a little tight on my feet, but better than only wearing one. I rooted through cupboards and drawers for food as hunger clawed and growled inside my stomach, but there was nothing.

I can’t leave
, I thought.
Not without knowing what’s going to happen to them.
But in my heart I already knew. Because there was no alternative.

With a sigh, I let my head fall forward and that was when I saw it. A hint of colour in a grey house: the orange of neon, the sparkling white of light, hiding in the fireplace, obscured by ashes. The postcard. I lifted it up, the edges singed and curled, and wiped the dust from it. That was it. I knew it was. That
was
the city in my dream, the lights, the signs, the shops, the people, all there.
But what did it mean?

I shook my head. I didn’t understand. And now there was no one to ask.

I turned the postcard over, the space on the other side filled with scrawled writing, no address, no stamp. I recognised my father’s name at the top, but nothing else; I couldn’t make out what language it was, couldn’t even read what city it was.

But how…?

And all those letters and photographs and magazines and newspapers? All burned. All destroyed.
Where did they come from?
I wanted to ask.
How did they get here?
I crouched down at the fireplace, my hands tearing through the remains of last night’s coal and wood, lifting up the burnt paper that disintegrated in my fingertips.

There was nothing left. Nothing, apart from maybe the envelope I’d seen my mother stuff into her clothes. But where she was, I had no idea.

There was a noise outside: a door opening and closing, footsteps. I paused, clenching the postcard between my fingers and edging towards the window. For a second I saw my neighbour reading a sign posted on a nearby tree, then he turned and I dropped to the floor, my back against the wall, the window above me. I knew what it would be.

“What does it say?” I heard his wife shout from inside. “The trial,” he answered, “it’s today.”

“You think he’ll be executed?”

I didn’t hear his reply.

I didn’t move.

I stayed crouched under the window while the rest of the village learnt of my family’s trial. The news spread quickly, but with little surprise. Everyone had seen it too many times before. Still, it was a spectacle, an event, a change from the monotony of daily life.

I thought about Sook. Over and over again. The first time we met, the conversations we’d had, the food he’d sneaked to me, our walks in darkness, the smile on his face, my hand in his. I thought I’d meant something to him. I thought I could trust him.

How wrong I’d been.

I felt so lost and lonely. So confused. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I wanted to sit and cry. I wanted my mother, or my father, my grandfather, or even my grandmother; for one of them to put their arms round me and hold me tight. Protect me. Whisper in my ear that everything was going to be fine. Even if it wasn’t. I wanted to shelter myself in naivety.

But was that what I had been doing for years? Father was right about the city: it was real. And if he was right about that… then what else might he have been right about?

I heard the roar of engines and music, tinny and distorted by a loudspeaker. I came out of my thoughts with a jolt. I didn’t need to look out of the window. I knew who it would be: the People’s Safety Agency who carried out executions. And behind their car would be an old white van with my family inside, rolling smoothly along the road I had cleaned and swept, then bouncing along the rugged paths into the village. Paths I had walked along with Sook.

I put my head down and closed my eyes, but the music droned on, louder and louder, and more and more distorted from the loudspeaker attached to the side, the words discernible only because they had been pumped into my head since birth:

“
Our future and hope depend on you

The People’s fate depends on you

Comrade Kim Jong Il!

We are unable to live without you! Our country is unable to survive without you…
”

I whispered the words along with the high-pitched voices screeching over the village, and when the song finished I looked out of the window, and I saw them lining up on a hill near the fields. I squinted through the glass, watching the children running towards them, the adults dropping their tools to the ground or herding their animals into a pen before walking over.

My father was taken from the van, his hands behind his back, my grandparents too. I searched through the crowds, over the vehicles – where was my mother?

I had to get out, I had to watch. I owed it to them. I wanted to see their faces one last time, wished I could catch their eye, tell them that I was so, so sorry. I wished I could do something. Help them. Stop this. Save them.

My chest burned, my head throbbed, my stomach rose and dropped with sickness and panic. I paced back and forth in silence, rubbing my head, my breath shallow.
What can I do? What can I do? What can I do?

I just wanted it to stop. My face was wet with silent tears of pain and anguish and hatred at myself and at Sook. I wanted to shout at him and hit him – shout out,
What have you done?
But it was me. It was my fault. My family were going to die and it was my fault.

I stopped and I breathed. And my dizziness passed.

They can’t execute them, can they? Surely they don’t deserve to die?

But it wasn’t only the crime that mattered, and I knew that; it was your standing, your social class, if your life mattered to anyone important. Ours didn’t.

I wiped away my tears and climbed out of the window again, dodging along the backs of the houses in our row, moving up and towards the site of the trial, keeping low, hidden from windows, even though by now everyone in the village should’ve been gathered to learn my family’s fate. To cheer, as was expected, when they were announced guilty, as everybody always was; to watch them die, if execution was the punishment.

I dashed from the houses, across a gap to the public toilets, remembering the first time I met Sook. I reached the end, peering out from behind the wall, the crowd of people with their backs to me, soldiers standing around, watching.

Are they looking for me? Would they
recognise me this far away?

One of them glanced my way, a rifle in his hands, and I waited, watching his head pan across the countryside. As he turned the other way, I walked out, my eyes flitting from one soldier to another, to another, and back. I made it to the greenhouses and I remembered crouching outside them with Sook, the night we held hands, the night I opened my mouth and betrayed my family. I felt sadness pour through me, the disappointment of realising it hadn’t been even a friendship.

I reached the end of the greenhouses, skirted along the side and ran, heading for a bank to the side of where everyone was gathered. I threw myself down, hidden again, rolled over on to my stomach and crawled to the top, peering through a clump of dead grass.

The village children sat together at the front, a good view, chattering and pointing, excited, all with their school uniforms on of blue skirts and white shirts, red scarves tied round their necks to show their allegiance to our Dear Leader. The adults stood behind them, their faces drawn and quiet, their blank eyes betraying no thoughts or opinions as they took everything in, a reminder of the eyes and ears of so many being ever-present in every place. Of suspicion ruling with an invisible force.

I peered through the grass, squinting against the bright winter morning at the faces of my family, trying to will them to turn round, to see me. My grandmother so small and frail, my father with his hands tied behind his back, my grandfather with his head still held high. But no Mother.

The wind took away most of the soldier’s words as he began to speak and I heard only the briefest snatches about anti-state crimes, plotting against our Dear Leader and mutterings of guilt as he turned to the crowd.

I didn’t see any evidence given or witnesses heard. Didn’t hear any defence or see a judge or a jury. Because there were none. He asked the crowd for their judgement and they shouted their replies, and although tainted with self-preservation, I knew they were right.

They gave my family’s sentence of guilt.

They gave my father’s sentence of death.