Joy Brigade

7

Commissar Oh and the young men in the crowd grabbed their chopsticks and started chomping away on marinated beef, pickled vegetables, and fluffy white rice.

The charcoal inside the metal drum suspended from the center of my little table was already glowing. One of the silk-clad ladies appeared and deftly laid slices of kalbi, deboned short ribs, on its hot wire grill. In seconds, the fat of the marinated beef was sizzling. She also set down a bowl of rice and three plates filled with turnip, cabbage, and cucumber kimchi. Then she departed. On my own, I used the shears she’d left behind to slice some of the meat and adjusted the slices over the fire with the chopsticks, keeping them out of the flames.

None of the men present knew that Commissar Oh had locked me in a dungeon and had me tortured. But I knew. And I wasn’t about to forget it either. Still, I was famished, and even though I wasn’t happy about accepting his hospitality, I was going to eat my fill. It was mid-evening now. I tried to figure out how long I’d been locked up. At least twenty-four hours, I figured, although I couldn’t really be sure. I wondered if I had a concussion from the beatings I’d taken or lung damage from the water torture. Probably, but no one had mentioned anything about medical attention and I certainly wasn’t going to ask. I felt I was hanging on by my fingernails here, and as long as I was being fed and I wasn’t locked up, for the moment, that was good enough.

Now that the foreigner had been shoved in his corner, everyone turned their attention away from me and resumed eating. Martial music burst out of tinny speakers. I figured I’d better eat quickly, because Koreans have a habit of clearing all tables at once, whether you’re finished or not, and then beginning speeches or entertainment or whatever delights the evening might hold. I shoved beef, still bloody, into my mouth. I ate all the kimchi and all the rice, but no one appeared at my table to offer me seconds.

I watched Commissar Oh. He ate sparingly and listened intently to the conversation of the men around him. The pleased expression on his face told me that they were flattering him. The same young man who had guided me from the door to this spot appeared next to Commissar Oh. He knelt and whispered into the commissar’s ear, and they both glanced at me. I stared back, my face impassive. The commissar turned back to the aide and said something, and the aide bowed and backed away.

I studied the young women who served the athletes. For the most part, they performed their duties in a business-like manner, but occasionally one of the young men said something to them and they looked up and smiled. Wire baskets containing clinking bottles of clear liquid were brought into the hall-soju. Soon the young women were pouring the soju into small shot glasses, holding the bottle with their right hand, supporting their forearm with the flattened palm of their left. The same elegantly dressed woman who’d delivered my food brought me a half-filled bottle of soju and a glass. She left abruptly. I poured it myself. In South Korea, she would have poured it for me. Not doing so was, if not an insult, at least a lack of propriety, but I was in no position to complain. When all glasses were full, Commissar Oh raised his in the air and started to speak.

Some of it I didn’t understand because the statement was long and flowery, but it boiled down to this: Foreigners continue to flock to our country to bask in the glow of the teachings of our Great Leader. Even now his wisdom is spreading beyond our shores and all who hear his mighty words quake at his power and the single-minded resolve of his people to use their bodies as weapons to protect his glory and advance the cause of our Great Leader and kick the running-dog Americans out of Korea and reunite our country under his glorious banner.

Or something like that.

When he was done, I drank as heartily and as deeply as anyone, mainly hoping the 40-proof liquor would ease the aches and pains in my tortured body.

More meat was brought in, and more soju, and then a troupe of young women in flowing silk dresses, each a different color, began to dance to a music that was less martial and more traditional. The women swirled their huge skirts and banged on drums. They leaned against each other and sang lilting songs with sweet voices.

While I was watching the show, someone knelt in front of me, keeping her head bowed. A woman in a bright-blue silk dress, not the one who had been serving me previously. She cut my meat, placed some of it carefully on the brazier, and turned it with chopsticks. Then, using two hands, she poured me a shot of soju. After I sipped, she looked up at me.

I held myself steady, attempting not to gasp. Kneeling before me was Senior Captain Rhee Mi-sook.

Up close, she was even more beautiful than she’d seemed at a distance. Lips soft, complexion flawless, black eyes burning. I thought of something I’d read somewhere, about the Mongol Khan’s advice when choosing a wife: Her face should be as flat as the grassy plains, her eyes narrow in order to keep out evil spirits, and her legs strong to make her husband happy. Except for the legs, which I couldn’t see, Captain Rhee fit the requirements. Back at Eighth Army, some GIs would have found her unattractive. She didn’t meet the traditional Western standard of beauty. Her nose wasn’t pointed, her eyes weren’t round, and she certainly wasn’t blonde. She was strictly Asian, through and through, and that’s what I found fascinating about her. Her straight black hair was oiled and pulled back and knotted in a bun, held in place by a single red peg.

She said something in a language I didn’t understand. Was it Latin-based? It seemed to be. Romanian, I thought. I caught the words that were similar to the Spanish for “where” and “born.” The problem was that I had no answer for her. I made something up.

“Moldavia,” I said.

This seemed to satisfy her, and, luckily for me, she apparently had reached the limit of her ability to speak Romanian. She switched to English. “Who are you?” she asked. Her voice was sultry, like the voice of a lover tangled in satin sheets.

I gawked at her, trying to concentrate, lost in the beauty of her soft white skin.

She continued speaking quietly, intimately, in English, keeping her head bowed so no one would notice our conversation, appearing to concentrate on turning the meat.

“A Peruvian sailor named Jose Aracadio Medin,” she said, “disappears from an Albanian ship. Then a Warsaw Pact officer turns up on a train unexpectedly, traveling north out of Nampo, but for some reason he doesn’t speak Russian. Now that same Romanian officer wins a Taekwondo tournament.” With her beautiful black eyes she peered up at me. “Who are you?”

Again, I didn’t answer. I knew if she hadn’t exposed me already, she wouldn’t until she could figure out whether or not powerful people in North Korea were behind me. If she exposed me too early, she took the risk of also exposing the incompetence of her clients, the commander of the Port of Nampo and the security apparatus at the Pyongyang Train Station. And incompetence in North Korea can prove fatal. Mistakes are not tolerated by the Great Leader and are dealt with harshly. Therefore, bad news is suppressed; information flows downhill but never uphill. Senior Captain Rhee’s task was to follow me, capture me if possible, question me, and keep everything quiet until she was sure of who, and what, she was dealing with.

“Hero Kang claims you are a hero of the invasion of Prague,” she said, staring intently into my eyes, searching for any sign of understanding. “But the Romanians didn’t participate in that invasion.” She leaned even closer to me. I felt her fresh breath mingling with mine. “You are a liar,” she said, pausing for a while to let the insult sink in. When I didn’t react, she said, “In this country, everyone lies. It is how we live. But you are after something. What is it?”

Her hand reached out and touched mine. The fingers were soft, long, clinging.

“We are the same, you and I,” she said. “You can trust me. Maybe we can do business.”

The music ended with a rousing crescendo. The gorgeous young dancing women took a bow and started to back out of the room. Senior Captain Rhee Mi-sook leaned away, pulling her hand back quickly. She looked around. I couldn’t help admiring her lovely profile. Her figure was full, and even under the covering of her silk tunic and high-waisted skirt, it was clear that Captain Rhee Mi-sook was all woman.

“I will talk to you later,” she said. “Stay away from the women here. Anyone you touch will be cast off and sent to work in the rice fields.”

Still, I didn’t answer. She couldn’t be sure I spoke English. She stood and gave me one last exasperated look. “Do you understand me?” she asked. But it was time for her and all the women to leave. She sighed in frustration and disappeared in a whoosh of swirling silk.

The lights lowered. Somewhere behind us, a movie projector clattered to life. A beam of light found a white screen and then we were feted with sports highlights of recent international events. In each clip, North Koreans competed and were victorious. Not one loss was reported. As the film flickered, the young women started to filter back into the room. However, they were no longer wearing their military uniforms. Now they were wearing skirts and blouses of either pure white or flowery patterned silk. Some of them went straight to a particular table and a particular young man. Other women held back, unsure of where to go, until one of the young men called to her. Then they bowed and scurried forward eagerly, taking a seat next to the man and almost immediately snuggling up next to him. The commissar had disappeared. Soon no one was paying attention to the sporting events on the screen and I realized that there was a lot of heavy breathing going on. Skirts were lifted, blouses opened.

I’d been in brothels before. Plenty of them. Even the worst of them offered a little privacy. But here, none of the young athletes were grabbing some girl by the hand and sneaking off into a back room. They all stayed where they were. It didn’t seem natural. But this was North Korea. The bosses wanted to reward these young champions, but they didn’t want to offer any of these young people privacy, where they might be able to form an even more intimate relationship, where they might talk about their hopes and dreams, where they might-by some fantastic stretch of the imagination-begin to plot against the Great Leader. I felt very uncomfortable.

And then a young woman appeared by my side. The flickering light of the newsreel fell on a round face and a mouth set in a determined line. She was still wearing a military uniform.

“Even in the harshest of winters,” she whispered in Korean, “the mugunghwa blooms.”

The purple mugunghwa is the ancient national flower of Korea. The sturdy blossom springs to life throughout the length and breadth of the Korean peninsula. In recent times, the North Korean regime designated the mongnan, a type of magnolia, the new national flower in its place-a move the South Koreans never agreed with.

She waited for my answer.

“Especially, I’m told, on the highest mountains,” I whispered back.

She picked up a tray of cold meat and slipped a key in my hand. Without looking back, she carried the tray away through the side door of the hall. Holding it low so no one else could see it, I studied the key. It was large, old-fashioned, apparently made of brass. A number had been etched along its side: 444.

I stared at the key, twisting it in the dim light to make sure I was reading it right. There it was, three Arabic numerals: 444. I was surprised because I’d never before seen such a combination in South Korea. South Korean hotels don’t have a fourth floor, or even a room number four, much less a room numbered four forty-four.

Still, there it was. I clutched the key in my hand. Everyone seemed preoccupied. I slipped into the shadows by the wall and edged through the rustling clothes and gasping breaths until I’d made my way out into the empty hallway. In the moonlit courtyard, I crouched for a moment behind a tall shrub with sturdy branches.

I waited. No one was following. No sign of Captain Rhee Mi-sook. I crept away toward buildings that I hoped would be lodging for the cadres, still wondering about the curious numbers. Still wondering if I’d live through this night.

Four is the number of death.

In Chinese, the character for the number four is pronounced like the “su” in “surreal.” In Korean, the same character is pronounced “sa.” And in both cases the character for death is pronounced in exactly the same way. That’s why hotels in the Far East skip the fourth floor. Some hotels, especially those catering to Westerners, also manage to do without a thirteenth floor, thereby covering superstitions developed on both ends of the Eurasian landmass.

So I wondered at a room numbered 444. Were the North Koreans actively trying to eliminate old superstitions? If so, that was laudable. One of the few laudable things I’d seen this government do since I’d arrived.

The woman who’d handed me the key wasn’t after me for my body. In fact, a North Korean woman with any brains would avoid me like a cholera epidemic. Relationships with foreigners are nothing but trouble. Any sign of anything other than complete and utter loyalty to the Kim clan, any allegiance to any foreign power, could result in not only the offending person but also their entire family being sent to the North Korean version of the gulag. Conditions there were so bad that for most people a prison sentence was the equivalent of a death sentence.

So the woman who’d handed me this key had been very brave. It was my job now to find her without exposing her to more danger.

When I was sure no one was watching, I emerged from the shadow of the bush and strolled toward a tile-roofed building on the far side of a gurgling pond. It would be best to avoid people, to stick to the shadows, but not to seem that I was hiding. In case I was caught, I could play the role of the dumb foreigner-a role that every North Korean had been propagandized to accept-and claim that I was lost.

There were no lights on in the building. It was single-story, about twenty yards long. Above the doorway at the end, I searched for some sort of numbering system. Then I saw it, carved into an oblong wooden placard attached to the doorframe: 73. Building number 73. So this key probably belonged to building number 44. I gazed around me. Nothing moved, just dark buildings all about the same size as this one, moonlight glimmering off their tiled roofs. A lot of real estate, I thought, and a lot of well-maintained buildings not being put to good use. The Communist cadres could afford waste like this, while the working people, whom they were supposedly sworn to protect, lived in poorly heated hovels with one family crammed on top of another.

This country truly was paradise, if you had the right connections.

Would they miss me back at the main hall? Probably not for a while. At least not until the newsreels were over and the heavy breathing stopped.

Sticking to the shadows, I continued my search.

Just as I approached the building that I thought was number 44, I heard the whistle. It was low, so low that I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t only the gentle evening breeze wafting through the rose bushes. So low that I thought I’d imagined the sound and that it was no more than the quivering of my nervous system.

I froze, hidden behind a low rock wall.

There it was again, another low whistle.

Someone was trying to warn me. Of what?

I lowered myself almost flat on the ground, holding myself just off the grass in a push-up position. Carefully, I studied every shadow around me. Nothing. No movement. I rose slowly and slunk toward the entranceway of the building I thought was number 44.

It was unlike the others. In fact, it wasn’t a proper building at all, just a grassy hillock with a stone wall on one side, like an ammunition storage facility. But as I approached, the moonlight glinted off stone carvings, faded from years of erosion, and then I saw the carved placard: 44. Building 44, door number 4. This was it. I realized why it had been given the number of death and why it looked so much like an explosives storage facility. It was a tomb. An ancient tomb. The door, however, looked modern, made of iron rather than the hand-carved stone that surrounded it.

The ancient kingdom of Koguryo had many tombs scattered throughout North Korea and what is now Chinese Manchuria. I knew that some of the most famous tombs were located near Pyongyang. This was one of them.

Fingers touched my elbow.

I spun, my eyes wide, ready to fight.

I had to look down to see her face. It was the woman who’d handed me the key. She held a forefinger to her mouth, warning me to be quiet. Then she held out her palm.

After steadying myself and releasing my breath quietly, I placed the key in her hand. She motioned for me to step into the shadow of the mound and then shoved the key into a hole in the iron door. She tried to turn it, but it didn’t budge. She glanced back at me inquiringly. I stepped past her and tried the key. It seemed to be catching, but, predictably, the locking mechanism was rusted from disuse. I wished we had some lubricating oil, but we didn’t, so I pulled the key out of the lock, licked my fingertips, and rubbed spit along the edge. I placed the key back into the lock and turned. It resisted, but I kept a steady pressure on it, not enough to snap the key but enough to force the stubborn connections to give. Finally, the key groaned and the handle of the door sprung upward. I pulled on the handle and the door creaked open, disturbing soil and grass.

Stale air rushed out, as if grateful to be free. We stared at the stone steps leading down into a black pit.

I still didn’t know why I was here or what we were supposed to do. All I knew was that I had to trust this woman. She was my only hope of getting out of here in one piece.

She glanced behind us, then reached into the pocket of her wool jacket and pulled out a small flashlight. She stepped inside the tomb and I followed. Only when I’d pulled the big iron door shut behind us did she switch on the flashlight. At the bottom of a short flight of steps, a long stone hallway led away from the door. She inched forward, walking upright. I had to crouch to keep from knocking my head against low-hanging rock.

Her name was Hye-kyong. She didn’t tell me her family name, but I already knew it. Kang. Doc Yong had told me that she was Hero Kang’s daughter, something that was best left undiscussed. I spoke Korean to her freely. If she betrayed me, I’d never get out of here alive anyway, but I didn’t think she would. Being a member of the Manchurian Battalion, and working with a foreigner like this, she was in as much danger as I was-if not more.

The smooth stone walls of the passageway were covered with frescoes. Ancient hunting scenes: men galloping on horses, letting loose arrows at magnificent horned creatures, dogs running at their side.

We hardly had time to admire them.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“There are tunnels,” she said, “all through this complex. Some lead to the ancient Koguryo tombs, some to bomb shelters. This one leads to the meeting room where Commissar Oh conducts his state security briefings.”

“And we’re going there why?”

“I want to show you something.”

I decided to prod her a little, to get her to open up. The more information I had, the more likely I was to survive. “Are you a member of the Joy Brigade?”

She lowered her head. “That is my shame.”

“I thought it was an honor to serve the Great Leader and the cadres who assist him in his great work.”

She stopped and swiveled on me. “Do you mock me?”

“No,” I said. “I’m just trying to understand.”

Her small fists were clenched and her round face was bright red. “I am a proud woman,” she said. “My father is a proud man. We believed that I would be serving the Great Leader when I was chosen for this job. And then I discovered our real purpose here.”

I waited, afraid to speak. Hero Kang’s daughter was about to explode.

In her effort to control herself, her entire body shuddered. “It is vile! These things they ask us to do. Always for the glory of the state, always for the good of the loyal comrades who serve the people and the Great Leader. But it’s not right! We are women. We have pride. We have pride in ourselves, pride in our bodies, and pride in the husbands and children and families that we someday hope to have. And they ask us to do these things! ”

And then she was crying, still standing at the position of attention, the tears rolling down her soft cheeks. After a few seconds I stepped toward her, my palm open, ready to pat her on the shoulder. At the last second, she backhanded my forearm away.

“No!” she said. “I don’t need your pity. I am a soldier. A comrade of the Manchurian Battalion. Come,” she said, pulling herself together, “we have work to do.”

Hye-kyong swiveled and marched down the tunnel.

I realized why Hero Kang had risked everything to get me in here. He wanted more than just state secrets. If he was any kind of father, and I believed he was, he’d also want Hye-kyong out of here. But to run away, to defy orders, would be tantamount to bringing a death sentence down upon herself and her family.

We’d have to escape quickly and we’d have to escape together. With the secrets and, if possible, with our lives.

At the end of the tunnel we reached a hatchway, a few feet up from the floor, probably designed for quick escapes. I studied it. No keyhole. Just then, we heard voices. I froze. One of the voices I recognized: Commissar Oh. Hye-kyong patted me on the shoulder reassuringly and then climbed up on a rock shelf that hovered just to the right of the door. She peered into something on the face of the wall, then pulled back and motioned for me to come forward. I did. It was a tiny hole, about half the width of a dime, slanting downward into a room a few feet lower than where we lay. It was a well-appointed room with overhanging fluorescent bulbs and maps and chalkboards mounted on stone walls. In the center was a long mahogany conference table, one end of which I could see clearly. Legs and feet were visible beneath the table, but I couldn’t see faces.

“Report!” a man barked. It was Commissar Oh.

Another voice I didn’t recognize started droning on with all the verve a detailed government report deserves, listing facts and figures: how many men in a unit, how many men out sick or on leave, a breakdown of artillery pieces and their state of repair. It was difficult for me to follow because many of the Korean-language nomenclatures were unfamiliar. Still, it was clear that they were talking about military hardware.

When the report was finally over, Commissar Oh asked another man if everything would be ready. Of course, he agreed that it would be. Even at Eighth Army, no officer in his right mind ever admits, especially to the boss, that he won’t be ready-for anything.

After about a half hour, the meeting was adjourned. We heard feet shuffling and chairs scraping and then someone spent another five minutes tidying up. The door of a safe slammed shut with a reassuring metal clang. Finally the light was switched off and another door slammed. I climbed down off the ledge and squatted next to Hye-kyong.

“We must enter,” she said.

“How?” I asked.

“Tomorrow night, I will be serving at a logistical staff meeting.” She pounded on the metal hatchway. “When no one is looking, I will open this door from the inside. Then, you will enter.”

“What do you mean ‘when no one is looking’? Won’t they be watching you closely?”

“That is my problem,” she said. “Not yours. At the conclusion of the meeting, they will make sure I leave. That is why we need another person-you-to enter through the escape hatch. There is no one else in this place we can trust to take on this job, only you. Once the lights go out, you will enter the conference room.”

She briefed me on the information that was needed and the most likely places to find it. “Once you have what we need,” she said, “you must escape.”

“How?”

“Exit through the ancient tomb and head south toward the main entrance of the First Corps headquarters. There will be signs. Along the way, I will meet you.”

“Where will we go from there?”

“All has been prepared. You will bluff your way out. A sedan will be waiting.”

A sedan? Only one person could be so bold. Hero Kang. I knew it might be indiscreet, but I couldn’t stop myself. We were too close to a resolution now. Decisions had to be made. All our cards had to be on the table. “Your father,” I said, “he is Hero Kang.”

She stood rigid, glaring up at me, and even in this dim light I could see that her face was red. She spoke slowly, enunciating every word. “You don’t talk about that.”

I held her eyes. “Will you be escaping with us?” I asked.

“Enough!” she snapped.

But I refused to back down. “He’s your father. Regardless of what has happened, he will help you. You have one chance to escape, tomorrow night, and you must take it.”

Her face was a bright crimson now. She swiveled and marched down the tunnel toward the entrance. As she did so, she spoke over her shoulder without looking back. “Return now, before you are missed. Tomorrow you will join in athletic training with the others. At night, when food is served, you must feign illness and slip away. Come here. Wait. You have the key!”