A Dream of Lights (7 page)

I knew what was coming, had seen it before, had sat at the front as a child and cheered, knowing it to be deserved.

But this was my father. A good man. Who wished nobody any harm. Who worked hard. Who loved us and cared for us. But…

Ever since that dream and that night and that conversation outside, there had been this
but.
He had shown me another side to him and I didn’t understand how the two could exist together.

I peered across the field, watching the people. My chest was empty, my lungs burned, my stomach clenched; I tried to gasp in breath that wouldn’t come. My eyes stung with hot tears, my head spun, the world, my world, turned and tilted in front of me.

This dreadful thing, this terrible thing. And all because of what I had said, and all because of Sook.

I hated him.
Hated
,
hated
,
hated
him. And I hated myself.
Why did I tell him?
my head screamed.
Why did I say anything? Why did I trust him?
I wanted to kill him, I wanted him dead. I wanted him to suffer, I wanted him to feel the pain that I was feeling for him betraying the trust I had given him.

I saw him in the crowd and watched him, my stomach turning over and over, my teeth grinding, my fists clenching with rage. I wished I had a gun, or a knife, or a rope to show him how angry I was and how much I hated every single piece of him now. I was a fool to think I had loved him, a fool to think he could have felt anything for me.

I shook and sobbed as I stared down at the scene in front of me. My grandmother crying as the soldiers carried a wooden post from the van, standing it up on end, hammering it into the ground. I closed my eyes as they forced my father to undress, embarrassed for him, but I heard the crowd’s jeers and taunts, and when I looked again he was pulling on a thick grey one-piece suit, and I remembered what my grandfather had told me when we watched the last execution. “The suit soaks up the blood,” he said. “Straight into the fabric. Makes it easier for the guards to clean up after.”

My father’s blood this time.

I watched them lead him to the post and I wanted to scream out at them to stop. I watched them tie him to it, a rope round his legs, one round his chest, and I wanted to run to him and throw my arms round him, tell him that I was so very, very sorry, that I wished I could take it all back, and that I loved him so very much.

At his feet they placed a large bag. Then three soldiers stepped back, loading their rifles, taking position, staring down the sights towards my father. Who had held me as a baby and clapped when I first walked, who cuddled me when I was ill and talked me through bad dreams. Whose hand held mine on the way to school and whose smile made me feel loved and wanted and needed.

Whose death I’d caused.

I didn’t want to see this, what was to happen to him, didn’t want to remember it. But I couldn’t close my eyes, I couldn’t look away.

The man in charge of the soldiers turned to the crowd. “You will witness how miserable fools end up,” he shouted. “Traitors who betray the nation and its people end up like this.” He looked to his men. “Ready your weapons!” he told them, and they lifted their guns to their shoulders.

“Aim at the enemy!”

They squinted their eyes down the sights. My father stood resolute, tall and dignified, not a word, not a cry, not a sound. I loved him.

“Single shot! Fire!”

The shots rang out as one, tearing into the ropes round his chest. I flung my hand over my mouth, stopping myself from crying out. Shaking and trembling. I could hear my grandmother, see my grandfather holding on to her, grief flooding them.

“
Now
he bows to us!” the man shouted as my father’s body bent over, the ropes round his legs still forcing him upright.

“Fire!” he shouted again, and they shot at my father’s head, the bag underneath positioned to catch everything.

It was too much; I swayed back and forth, rubbing my hands over my head, through my hair, my fingers clenching and unclenching, my anger and shock and disbelief clawing inside me like an animal trying to escape. I stood up. I didn’t care any more. I didn’t care what he was guilty of. He was my father and I loved him.

I wished I could’ve spoken to him before this, could’ve said sorry. Wished I could’ve told him for the first time, and the last, that I loved him, that he meant the world to me, that I was so proud of him, so proud to be his daughter. All those things I had never, never said, and now he would never know. My body shook and tears streamed down my face.

I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t look away, couldn’t sit again to hide, couldn’t move. I glanced at my grandfather and he caught my eye. And I watched him very slowly and very deliberately move his head from one side to the other.

But the words came again, and on the word ‘Fire’, the ropes at my father’s legs were broken and he fell, limp and lifeless, into the bag at his feet.

My lungs and my chest emptied as I shouted out my anger from the top of the hill, my words, that I can’t even remember, carrying across the villagers and the soldiers and the body of my father and my grandparents until I had nothing left inside me.

Everybody stopped and everybody turned and silence fell over all of us.

Out of all the people in the village, my eyes fell on Sook, and I watched the leer on his face slip as he saw me. I hoped he could feel my hatred pouring out to him as we stared at each other.

That face. That face I’d imagined in darkness so many nights, that I could recognise in bleary moonlight, that had given me dreams to wish for.
How could I have been so wrong?
I thought.

Mutterings gathered, the babble of children, the bark of an order, but it was all background noise to whatever was passing between me and Sook. But then I heard it, the one voice shouting to me. “Run!”

I turned and saw Grandfather on his feet. “Run!” he shouted again, and I shot a glance from him to the soldiers reloading their guns, to my father’s body, and back to Sook.

And I ran.

With fire in my belly, and fear in my heart, I ran.

With my legs driving and pumping forward and forward, I ran. Down the back of the hill and over the grass, across the fields and towards the school. Shouting echoing behind me. My feet pounding on the dirt road, my lungs screaming at me to stop.

I ran past the greenhouses, a shot ringing out, shattering the glass at my side as it missed me. I tried to speed up. Didn’t know where I was going apart from forward and away. Behind me I could hear the thudding of heavy boots, shouts of stop. But I carried on and on, my lungs burning, my feet stumbling on ruts and lumps in the path.

I ran.

I heard the bang of a gun again and I screamed, but felt no pain and knew it had missed. I was tiring, no energy in my legs of lead, no air in my lungs. I tripped and stumbled, staggered, fell to the ground. I tried to scramble away, the sound of feet closing in on me, tried to pull myself up. But something grabbed my leg and pulled me backwards, my skirt rolling up as I clung and struggled and clawed and kicked and screamed and shouted. Desperate to get away.

He spun me over on to my back and put his boot on my chest, and I looked up at him, the rays of the sun coming out from behind his head, like a poster of our Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. But the brightness obscured his face into shadow, and I could barely see him, and for only a fraction of a second did I see the butt of his gun lift above my head.

“Where are we?” My voice was strained, my throat sore, my lips dry and cracked. A pain throbbed in my head and lights flashed behind my closed eyelids.

“Ssshhh, child,” my grandfather’s voice replied, and I felt the rough skin of his hand brush hair from my face. “Keep your eyes closed and rest.”

I felt tired and confused, could feel a blanket wrapped round me, the rough fibres rubbing on my cheek, could smell exhaust fumes, sense the moving air, knew we were moving as my body jostled back and forth, and bumped up and down and an engine grumbled underneath me.

We’re on the back of a truck
, I thought.

My body ached and groaned at me as I tried to remember what had happened, and I moved my hand up to my head, felt a lump, bruised and tender. I winced in pain.

“It’s good to see you awake,” Grandfather whispered, taking my hand and stroking it. I curled up against him like a baby, my head lifting up and down on his chest as he breathed, slowly blinking my eyes open.

“What happened?” I asked.

I felt him shrug. “You were unconscious when he dragged you back.”

“Grandmother?” I asked.

“She’s here. She’s next to me.”

I waited for her to speak, but nothing came.

“And… and Mother?” I breathed.

I felt my grandfather’s sigh. “She’s been sent to Chongyong in the north, near the Chinese border. She has to divorce your father, and she can’t have anything to do with you ever again. Or me. Or your grandmother. Your father took all the blame for what happened. He said it was all his doing, so your mother wouldn’t be punished because she doesn’t share his blood. Not like us. He couldn’t do anything to protect us. Three generations. You know that.” He paused and glanced down at me. “We were going to leave, Yoora,” he whispered. “In a few weeks. Everything was ready. Planned.”

So Sook was right
, I thought.

“You were traitors,” I breathed.

The sadness in his eyes was painful to see. “Only to you,” he replied.

I turned my cheek into him, his warmth giving some comfort, his arms round me now, his fingers stroking through my hair. I didn’t understand how he could bear to be close to me; I had caused his son to be killed. I had ruined his life.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He wiped away my tear. “So am I,” he said.

I peered through my sore, swollen eyes to the blue sky above us, watching the clouds form and re-form, a tree branch wave, a bird flap its wings in freedom.

Freedom
, I thought.
To be able to cross a border, to be able to choose. Choose where to live, or what job to do. Choose what books to read, TV stations to watch, radio to listen to. Or even choose words to question, or argue, or debate, or just to think with.

Next to me Grandfather jostled me, moving his arm and reaching into his pocket, and I heard something crinkle and blinked away the blurriness as he held it in front of me.

It was the postcard, creased and charred with singed edges and smelling of smoke. “This was in your pocket when you came back,” he said.

I nodded. “I found it in our house last night. I wanted to keep it.” I took it from him. “I dreamt about it,” I told him. “I was there, in my dream, but it was so real.” I ran my fingers over the lines of light, and the cars in the street.

“You know where it is?” Grandfather asked. I glanced up at his face and shook my head.

“It’s Seoul,” he said. “In South Korea.”

I frowned. “South Korea isn’t like that,” I whispered. “Our Dear Leader told us. Nowhere is better than here, he said.” Grandfather said nothing in reply, only looked at me.

I thought of my hunger, my cold house with ice on the windows, my neighbours’ child who’d died, my father and my mother who I would never see again. I thought of how hard we all worked, how little we all smiled, and I looked up at my grandfather’s face, so tired, so drawn, then down to the postcard. And I thought of Father’s words.

“But… but I’ve never been there… How could it have got into my head?”

“Another time,” Grandfather whispered. “When you’re rested.” Kindness spilt from him as he wiped a tear from my cheek and tried to smile.

Seoul? Really?
I thought.
A different country? A place better than here? But that’s not what we were taught. Yet I can see it, here in front of me, this postcard, this place, and I can remember my dream so vividly.
How can it not be real?
I questioned.

I held the postcard tight between my fingers, a piece of hope, a link to the outside world. A clue to the truth. I wished it might be a flash of a future that could possibly be mine. But how could it be now?

I watched the trees speeding past us, the countryside stretching away, towards whatever waited for us.

The only future before me now.

Hours passed slowly on the back of the truck, and the sky turned from the fresh, bright blue of the winter cold to orange and reds streaking across the horizon like bloodstains, to shades of grey, muting everything, making everything indistinct. We turned on to a smaller road, bumpy and potted, and the trees became denser and the air stiller, and I felt trepidation creeping through me.

I could feel something. Something in the air, in the stillness. A foreboding. A dread. A sadness.

“The Pass of Tears,” Grandfather whispered. “The last stretch of road before the prison camp.”

I struggled to my knees, ignoring my cuts and bruises and aches and pains, and shuffled around, leaning over the side of the truck to see the road ahead of us. The truck rattled over a narrow wooden bridge and I peered down and over the edge; a moat or a ditch briefly passed underneath us, a little water just visible at the bottom, dark and murky with weeds clogging the sides. And something long and thin, shining and glinting, sticking up into the air, lots of them, following the length of the ditch for as far as I could see.

Metal spikes.

My eyes automatically flashed to my grandfather – he had seen them too. “To stop people trying to escape,” he whispered, then turned away from me as if trying to hide his fear, his resignation to the life, and the death, waiting for us.

I looked back again to the entrance that was now so close: a fence stretching away for miles on each side of us, no end in sight, the top at least two and a half metres high, electricity signs near it. A grey concrete building stood hard and angular and box-like; a flat-topped watchtower next to it with two guards, both with guns slung over shoulders, and narrow eyes staring down at us.

Waiting for us to pass under, marking our arrival, was a gateway, a concrete pillar at either side, a slab across the top like a gravestone. I whispered the words carved into it – “Give up your life for the sake of Our Leader Kim Jong Il” – and I shivered.

My grandmother glanced at me for the first time since the execution, and the hatred in her eyes, her disgust for me, was frightening. But I understood why. And I didn’t blame her. This, that waited for us now, and her son’s death, her only child’s death, were all my fault. And there was no way I could change any of it.

“Grandfather?” I whispered, looking up into his dark eyes, which I knew would never hate me. “Will we come out again?”

He didn’t say a word. I watched his eyes fill with tears as he looked down at me, and I heard him swallow hard and felt his first tear fall on me. “One day at a time, Yoora. One step at a time. One foot in front of the other and maybe. Just maybe.”

There was no reply I could give, or words I could say, no amount of apologies I could mutter that would make any difference.

I nodded and I took his hand.