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My Secret Childhood

 

 

 

Idon’t know when I was born. I don’t know whether my mom ever saw my face or just left for the other world without a glimpse of me. I still wonder whether my father is alive or dead. After giving birth to me, my mother didn’t get enough to eat—no bowls of miyeokguk, no honey, eggs, or pork—not even the most basic food for a woman just out of childbirth. Instead, my grandmother soaked the placenta and umbilical cord in water, drained them of blood (they shrink and turn white), cut them into tiny cubes, and coated them with sugar so that my mom could swallow each piece in one bite. She wasn’t supposed to chew, in order to protect her teeth, which were still soft from the punishment of pregnancy, but she was too weak to swallow. In the end, this sustenance didn’t help enough; perhaps she didn’t want to share this world with me.

My grandmother liked to say I was a troublemaker even in the womb. It seemed I wanted out as soon as possible. My mom often rolled on the floor, clutching her stomach after a flurry of my kicks; they were sure I would be a boy, that I had been a soccer player in my previous life.

My grandmother’s face would bloom with a smile when she said, “Jia, you don’t know how happy we were when we saw you for the first time. We were so relieved that you were an adorable girl, and not the tough little nut of a boy we were expecting. Your sister and I couldn’t handle that, and now I don’t have to worry about you going crazy about soccer and coming home injured, like your father did when he was a boy.”

My father’s and mother’s photographs were hidden in a recess of my grandmother’s closet. My grandfather didn’t allow me to see them, and when he discovered me holding my parents’ pictures in my hands, he scolded me bitterly. He also shouted at my grandmother; he didn’t know she had held on to them, and that whenever I wasn’t feeling well she dandled me on her knee and showed me the photos for comfort. She would talk for hours about my father and mother, their love for each other, and my mother’s extraordinary beauty.

In his individual photos, my father never smiled. His thick hair was brushed straight back from his forehead; his eyes were two long slits, staring directly into the camera, as if in challenge. He looked stubborn, with his triangular face and thin lips. In the photos with my mother, however, he was transformed: his eyes turned to half-moons as he smiled; he looked like a bashful boy.

 

When my father saw my mother for the first time, dancing in her traditional hanbok with the grace of a pink-winged butterfly, he fell in love instantly. When I saw the pictures, I envied her big eyes, straight legs, and thin waist. She put on such bright makeup and wore beautiful dresses, and always smiled in her pictures. I wondered if she still smiled in the other world.

My sister also remembered our mother. When my body was feverish, she would hold my hand in bed and talk about her.

“At first, I despised you. I believed you took Mom to the other world. I didn’t want to see you or take care of you at all. You would cry for days at a time—you were always hungry, because we couldn’t feed you well. I even prayed you would go back to your world and Mom would return in your place. But Jia, you’re my treasure now. I can’t stand it when you’re sick—don’t be sick anymore.” We fell asleep hugging each other tightly. Her hand was like magic, and my fevers never lasted very long.

 

When I was small, I came down with any and every disease a child could have. Vomiting was a regular part of my life; fever frequently occupied my body. My grandparents and my sister worried whenever symptoms of a new disease came on, because they couldn’t get suitable medicine. Sometimes they had to watch over my ailing body helplessly for several days, never sleeping. I don’t get sick easily anymore. Perhaps my trials as a child gave me the strength I have now.

There weren’t many people in the part of North Korea where my family lived. Mountains stretched in all directions, and what few people there were fit into either of two categories: “extremely bad” and “commonly bad.” The extremely bad were locked inside barbed-wire fences, and the commonly bad lived outside the fence. We were fortunate to be in the second group. The “inside people,” as we called them, had faces stained with coal ash and were perpetually bent over, their eyes staring at the ground, no matter how old they were. The men in dark-green uniforms, however, had clean faces and shiny shoes.

My grandparents strictly forbade my sister and me from walking along the fence. Sometimes I looked down at the camp from high up on the hill; I could see the contrasting faces of the residents and the guards.

We didn’t talk with our neighbors much. People seemed to be too tired to talk to each other. Adults left their house early and came back with black dust on their faces. My grandfather and grandmother were not exceptions. My grandfather had back trouble and often coughed up phlegm. My grandmother’s problems were not as serious, as her job cooking for the white-faced guards in the camp was less dangerous than his. I spent many evenings waiting for her to come home with leftovers, like rice cakes or glutinous rice jelly. “Today was a lucky day for you girls,” she would say, shuffling through the door with a wrinkled smile.

Surrounding our house were mountains and an enormous valley, with trees and grass everywhere in between. The water was clean; we could drink it without a care, and my sister and I swam every day. Whenever I wasn’t sick, I was outside until late into the evening; I wanted to make up for my bedridden life with outdoor activities. Our grandparents assigned homework daily, usually the collection of mushrooms and herbs. Every night, huddled close together, we cleaned our harvest thoroughly, and the next day our grandparents brought it to the camp. My sister and I spent the days searching the mountains and valleys for new things to do and see. We held races to see who could swim faster; though I was much younger than my sister, my long arms and legs helped me win, or at least get abreast of her. It could be she simply gave me the chance.

I was curious about people and other places, and I read all the books my grandmother kept in her closet. They helped my sister and me forget about the gray faces and the thick, pointy wire fences, even for an hour. The photos in some of the books thrilled me, transporting us to places we had never been and introducing us to people we had never met. I had so many questions about what I saw in the pictures: the high buildings, the people walking on pavement, and especially the kids my own age dressed in nice clothing. These were photos taken in Pyongyang, North Korea’s biggest city, and from first sight, I dreamed of living there and walking those streets. My grandmother answered all my questions kindly, explaining everything in detail.

There was only one rule: I was never to ask about my father. My family’s refusal to talk about him convinced me he had done something terrible. Often I hugged my grandmother and grumbled that I despised my father, knowing he brought my family tragedy. I knew it was his fault that my mother was dead, and that we lived in such an isolated place. I cursed him over and over, but my grandmother consoled me, whispering that he never meant to hurt us. He was smart, she’d say, he just wasn’t lucky. That’s why people tried to hurt him. It was not his fault. His only fault was being born in the wrong place.

I learned my parents’ story the day before my unexpected farewell to my grandparents and my sister. I didn’t even get the chance to boast to my sister about what I had learned from Grandmother. I didn’t know it was the last gift she would give to me.