The Target

Chapter 55

It had taken the better part of two weeks, but Chung-Cha rinsed Min off once more in the shower and beheld a girl devoid of dirt, even in her ears. And the stubborn grime under her fingernails and toenails was no more.

The medical visits had been conducted and Min’s wounds and bruises had been attended to and were healing quickly. The girl’s overall health had been pronounced sound and her immune system was functioning properly. That was truly a miracle, Chung-Cha knew, for a camp prisoner of any duration, because the conditions were so squalid. As on a battlefield, far more died from disease than wounds. Bacteria easily trumped bombs and bullets in lethality.

Min’s teeth were in poor condition, but unlike Chung-Cha’s they were capable of largely being saved. The girl had not flinched once at the dentist’s office. She seemed to understand that all that was being done was for her own good.

Chung-Cha had increased the girl’s meal intake slowly, giving Min more and diverse food each day until her stomach could handle it properly. The doctors had told her that Min had not reached her growth spurt yet and the additional food would help accelerate this event.

There was the matter of education, which for now Chung-Cha took on herself. Min was an eager if frustrated learner, and the hours of instruction went by quickly. She could read a bit and she knew her numbers to a point. She was well versed, as all prisoners were, in the philosophy and teachings of North Korea’s great leaders. But she needed to know more than that.

This could not be accomplished in a week or even a year, Chung-Cha knew. And she was not a trained teacher. She would have to arrange for Min to attend school. But Min would be far behind other students her age and to place her there now would only serve to humiliate her. So Chung-Cha would work with her, and then she planned to arrange for a personal instructor. It would all take time and money. But Chung-Cha had requested and received special dispensation to accomplish this. It was a wonder to her that she had never asked for such things before. Apparently the leadership was willing to give her far more than a rice cooker and some wons.

As she spent time with Min, Chung-Cha waited for a phone call or a knock on the door that would summon her to work. She knew it would come at some point.

And when she had to go and train, as she did each day, Min was left with the family that managed the apartment building. At first Min wanted to stay with Chung-Cha, go wherever she was going. This was impossible, Chung-Cha had explained to the girl. The first time she had to go away, Min was very upset, and Chung-Cha knew why.

She doesn’t believe I’m coming back.

Chung-Cha had taken off a ring that she wore and given it to Min. “You take care of this for me while I’m gone. You can give it back to me when I return. It is my prized possession.”

“Did it belong to someone in your family?” Min asked.

Chung-Cha lied and said, “My mother.”

The ring was actually of no significance to her. It was just a ring. But a lie was as good as the truth when it achieved one’s goal.

One evening Chung-Cha dressed Min in her nicest clothes and they walked to the metro. At first Min was afraid to get on the train, but Chung-Cha told her it was a fun ride that would take them to a place where a great meal would be waiting. Min jumped on the train without further hesitation. She looked around in amazement both at all the people on the train and at how fast it moved. When they got off and ascended to street level she wanted to know if they would take “this train thing” back home.

Chung-Cha assured her that they would, which made Min smile.

They walked past a number of restaurants. While Min looked curiously at them, Chung-Cha kept her gaze straight ahead.

Then she led Min into the Samtaesung Hamburger Restaurant. They sat at a table. Chung-Cha kept her back to the wall.

She was surprised when Min noticed this and said, “You don’t like people coming up behind you, do you?”

“Do you?”

“No. But they do anyway.”

“Then you must do something about that.”

They ate hamburgers and fries. Chung-Cha let Min have only a few sips of her vanilla milk shake because she was worried the richness might make her sick.

Min’s eyes widened. “This is the best food I have ever had.”

“It is not Korean food.”

“Where, then?”

“Just not Korean.”

They finished eating and left. Chung-Cha and Min walked around Pyongyang and she showed the young girl as many of the sights as possible in a few hours. Min had innumerable questions, and Chung-Cha tried to answer them all as best she could.

“Is the Supreme Leader really three meters tall?”

“I have never met him, so I do not know.”

“They say he is the strongest person on earth and his mind is full of all the knowledge in the world.”

“They said the same to me about his father.”

They walked on in silence for a bit.

“You said you had no family at the camp,” began Chung-Cha.

“I have no family.”

“You were born in the camp, Min. You had to have a family.”

“If I did, no one told me who they were.”

“They separated you from your mother?”

Min shrugged. “I have always been alone there. That is just the way it was.” She looked up at Chung-Cha. “What about your family?” She nudged the ring on Chung-Cha’s finger. “Your mother gave you this?”

Chung-Cha did not answer. They walked on in silence.

After they returned on the train to the apartment, Chung-Cha settled Min into her bed on the sofa. Min studied her quietly. “Did I say something to make you sad, Chung-Cha?”

“You did nothing wrong. The wrong is all within me. Go to sleep.”

Chung-Cha went to her room, undressed, and climbed into bed. She lay there staring at the ceiling.

And on that ceiling there appeared images she had forced from her mind seemingly forever.

The guards had come for her that day. General Pak had told her that she could be free. Then Pak had left. And the woman had taken Chung-Cha aside and told her what she must do to earn her freedom.

“Your mother and father are enemies of our country. Your brother’s and sister’s minds have been poisoned as well, Chung-Cha. You understand this, do you not?”

Chung-Cha had slowly nodded. She could not remember loving her parents. They regularly beat her, even when not instructed to by the guards. They snitched on her. Her brother and sister were competitors of hers for food, clothing. They too snitched on her. They too beat her. She did not love them. They were evil. She assumed they had always been evil. She was here because of her family. She had done nothing wrong. It was they who had committed the wrongs.

“Then you must act, Chung-Cha. You must rid your country of its enemies. Then you will be free.”

“But how do I do this?” she had asked.

“I will show you. You must do it now.”

She had been taken to a room underneath the prison. It was in the same area where she had lived for a while because of something her father had done while there. It was far worse than living in the hut. She had not believed that anything could be worse than that, but it was. During that time she had not seen the sun for what seemed like years. All of her work was done underground, digging with a pickax, hauling rock, working her fingers down to the bone.

Inside this room were four people. They were tied to posts. Their heads were covered with hoods. Their mouths must have been gagged underneath, because all Chung-Cha could hear were grunts and moans.

There were two guards on either side of the four people.

The woman had taken a knife from her bag. It was long and curved and had a serrated edge. She handed it to Chung-Cha.

“Do you see the red circle drawn on their fronts?”

Chung-Cha looked over and indeed saw a red circle on the chest of each of the four people.

“You will stick this knife inside the red circle. You will then pull it out and stick it back in. This is for each of the people, do you understand?”

Chung-Cha said, “Is this my family?”

The woman said, “Do you want to be free of this place?”

Chung-Cha nodded vigorously.

“Then you do not question. You follow orders. This is your order. Do it now, or you will die here as an old woman.”

Chung-Cha gripped the knife and walked hesitantly toward the bound figure on the far left, the one she assumed must be her father.

He was struggling against his binding, perhaps knowing what was coming. She heard his grunts increase in volume. He thrashed, but he could not really move because of the bindings and the stoutness of the wooden post.

Chung-Cha raised the knife as high as she could, over her head. She drew it back. The grunts increased. But for the gag her father would be screaming.

She screwed up her eyes until she could barely see out of them. Then she lunged forward and plunged the knife into the circle. His body went rigid and then he thrashed madly, nearly dislodging the knife from her grasp.

“Once more!” screamed the woman.

Chung-Cha withdrew the knife and stuck it in him again. Then he stopped moving as the blood poured down his front. A guard stepped forward and removed the hood. It was her father. His face hung down, the gag balled in his mouth. His eyes were open, lifeless. He seemed to be staring down at her.

“The next one, Chung-Cha. Do it or you are lost,” screamed the woman.

Chung-Cha automatically turned to the next person and stabbed twice.

It was her sister.

“Do it now, Chung-Cha. Now. Or you are lost forever!”

The next. It was her brother.

The woman screamed the threat again and again. “Do it now, Chung-Cha. Now! Or you are lost forever.”

The last two strikes. Metal thudded into flesh.

Chung-Cha no longer had any idea what she was doing. Her hand was moving of its own accord. She could have been stabbing a dead hog.

When the hood was taken off her dead mother looked down at her.

Chung-Cha dropped the knife, took a step back, and fell to the floor, crying, her body covered with the blood of her family. Then she picked up the knife and tried to kill herself with it, but the guards were too fast. They took it from her.

The woman pulled her up. “You have done well. Now you can leave here and serve your country. Forever. You have done well, Chung-Cha. You should be so proud.”

Chung-Cha looked at the woman. She was smiling down at the little girl who had just slaughtered her family.

Chung-Cha did not know that she was crying in her bed now.

But she did know that Min had climbed in with her, wrapped her little body around her, and was hugging her tightly.

Chung-Cha could not hug her back. Not now.

On the ceiling was the image of her family.

Dead by her hand.

All dead.

The price of her freedom?

Chung-Cha’s soul.