I couldn’t feel any connection with the miners who frequented the café. Not the slightest interest or compassion for people who labored in the lowest rung of society. Maybe it was different for my friends like Sooim. How do you get them to realize their own power to participate in history? What can you do so their joy and sadness, anger and collective resistance, lead to something? If I were Sooim I might have been stuck on such problems, but I wasn’t that sort of person. The miners, in my eyes, were just men I had to interact with while I did my job. Everyone I met as a café waitress was pretty much the same: shallow, snobbish, and shamelessly vulgar. They were men who came to the café only to joke around and think about calling us out to a hotel at night.
Every time I dealt with them, what came back to me was the memory of the spit on my face that day I had first arrived. Even after all that time, I still couldn’t shake off that cold and repulsive feeling. Any customer could be the one who had spat on me that day, or they were all an anonymous crowd who could do that to me at any time. And then, one man in that crowd—Kim Gwangbae—had stepped out in front of me.
He came to the café every day without fail after that. When he worked the day shift, he came in the evening, and when he worked the swing shift or the night shift, he would come sit in the café all day doing nothing. But whenever he came, he tried his best to pretend he didn’t know me. If I tried to get close and talk to him, he would give me a cold look and avoid me.
On the other hand, he got along with Seol. He was friendly and respectful, buying her tea and laughing with her as if he wanted me to see. But even so, I knew he was always thinking of me. He pretended to be indifferent, but when I ignored him back, I could see he was angry and upset. It was written all over his face. It was childish, adolescent behavior, and it was pitiful, but it also amused me for some reason. Maybe I was just secretly enjoying that subtle tug-of-war.
The problem was Seol. After a while, she had begun to fall for him.
—He’s much nicer than I thought! He seems to have a kind and gentle side…. I guess appearances can fool you. You can’t tell from just the outside.
I sensed that Seol had more than just a crush on him. From the time she was young, she’d been wandering around here and there living off her body and enduring all manner of hardships, but in the end, she was just a lonely and tired little girl who couldn’t help but crumble at the slightest sign of interest and affection. I wanted to tell her to beware of him, that the affection and kindness he showed her weren’t sincere. But I couldn’t.
One day, I went across the street to deliver coffee at the Manhojang Hotel. When I walked into the room that had placed the order, I was stunned to see Kim Gwangbae sitting in there by himself. I struggled to hide my shock and served the coffee for him, just like I did for any other customer. But when I handed him the cup, he grabbed my wrist instead.
—Go out with me today.
His voice quavered, and it was so loud it sounded like some incomprehensible scream.
—What are you doing? Let me go!
I screamed, too, and pulled my wrist free.
—You said you wanted to go out with me.
—I didn’t mean it that way.
—Then what did you mean? Are you playing with me? This is the only way I know. I paid the ticket, so I’ll just add a tip, alright?
—You’ve got the wrong person. I guess I was wrong about you. I’m leaving.
I got up in a hurry. I was afraid he’d hold me back by force. But, to my surprise, he just sat there with his head bowed until I got out of that hotel room.
Back at the café, I was full of remorse. It was all my fault! Why did I have to behave like that with him in the first place? Because he was a failed leader in the workers’ movement? But what did that have to do with me?
—Guess who I was out with! Seol said to me early the next morning after spending the night out.
—It was with him, Kim Gwangbae!
—Really?
I didn’t take my eyes off the magazine I was reading because I didn’t want her to notice that my face was suddenly red, and I tried to sound indifferent, but there was a tremor in my voice. Why would she make me blush and my voice tremble?
—Do you know what he said? He asked me if I’d consider moving in with him. The nerve!
—So, what did you tell him?
—I told him not to look down on me, huh?
I really didn’t understand it. Each word in Seol’s excited chattering was like a sharp stab to my heart. I didn’t know if I was just jealous, or angry at being betrayed, or sad for Seol, who didn’t know anything.
After that day, Seol had more outcalls at night, and the customer was always Kim Gwangbae. They used a hotel room at first, but then she started going to his house. Every day, she seemed to fall more and more in love with him. Sometimes she seemed anxious and worried for no reason, other times she was playful because she was so happy. She worried me.
I knew the illusion she held on to would soon shatter and leave her nothing but pain and bitter disappointment, and I wasn’t wrong. A few days ago—I guess it was the night before I was arrested—I saw Kim Gwangbae again. He didn’t come to the café—he phoned, and the place I went to for the delivery was a restaurant. When I arrived, I heard a woman singing inside and the clatter of chopsticks keeping time. I walked to the back of the restaurant to a tiny room in the corner, and I saw a man sitting with a barmaid. I was just about to walk into that room, but I stopped. It was Kim Gwangbae.
The room was thick with cigarette smoke and reeked of grilled pork. The woman was dressed in traditional hanbok and sat close by his side. She wore thick makeup, but even under all that powder, she couldn’t hide the fact that she was over thirty.
—Ah! You’re here! Come on in.
His face was already red from the alcohol and his eyes seemed slack. I realized he had called specifically for me, and he’d bought two tickets. I had no choice but to go in. I sat across from them, unwrapped the thermos, and started making coffee. The whole while, they were cuddling, playing with each other. He slid his hand inside her dress over her breasts, and with each movement, she squirmed and giggled. I did all I could not to look at what they were doing, but I couldn’t block out the sounds.
—Hey, come over here. I’ll take care of both of you, he said, looking up, his eyes out of focus.
Then, making sure I could see, he held the woman’s face and kissed her as she burst out laughing. I silently wrapped the thermos back up in its cloth. Then I got up and said to him:
—Mr. Kim, you’re uglier and more despicable than I thought. I have a piece of advice for you. Don’t ever touch Miss Seol again. A man like you is beneath her.
And I ran out of that room. But that wasn’t the end of it. Not long after that, he appeared at the café, staggering drunk.
—Hey, what did you say to me? I’m ugly and despicable?
He was screaming at the top of his lungs like the day I first saw him.
—Yes! I’m ugly and despicable! I’m human garbage worth less than a bug! You—you’re a college student from Seoul, a labor activist! So why’d you wag your tail at someone like me? You want to go out with me? You really want to date me? Are you making fun of me? You think Kim Gwangbae’s the kind of man you can make fun of? You think you’re too good for me? Well, exactly how good are you?
I couldn’t say anything in response. Everyone was staring at me, and I didn’t know what to do with them looking at me like that. And I saw Seol there, her shocked and dismayed expression. Our eyes met, and then she abruptly pushed open the door of the café and ran out. I wanted to follow her, but for some reason I was stuck in that spot, helpless and petrified, as if I’d turned to stone.
“So, did you get some sleep last night?”
Detective Cheon had just raised his head. He was at his desk, busily writing something.
“Yes.”
“Pretty uncomfortable in the holding room, huh?”
“It was manageable.”
“Wait there a moment.”
He spoke to Shinhye matter-of-factly, as if she had come to see someone. She sat, absently looking out the window fogged with grime. The green awning that covered the lower half of the window was also pale with dust. It was hard to see outside; she could hear only an occasional car and other noises from the street. Suddenly she wondered if she would ever be able to go outside again. There was just a single window in-between, but the outside world and this place seemed so distant from each other.
“So, I reread your statement from last night.”
Detective Cheon finally turned to face her. Shinhye saw that he was holding in his hands the statement she had stamped with her red thumbprint the night before.
“This isn’t adequate. You say you approached Kim Gwangbae and formed a group to raise consciousness among the miners. But all of the specific details are missing.”
“Is that what it says?”
Cheon looked momentarily annoyed by her question.
“That’s the statement you gave with your own mouth and signed last night.”
“I never said anything like that! I did not approach Kim Gwangbae to raise the consciousness of miners! I never even dreamed of anything like that. I must have been so sleepy last night that I signed without even knowing what it said.”
Her heart was pounding harder and harder as she spoke. Detective Cheon just silently stared at her. At first, he looked like he couldn’t believe what she had just said, but then his face paled, as if she had insulted him.
“Now I see you’re not just some ordinary bitch.”
He angrily tore up the statement and waved it in front of Shinhye’s eyes.
“This is worthless. Bitch like you needs to be taught a lesson first.”
Seeing his rigid expression, Shinhye felt goose bumps all over her body.
“Come with me,” he said curtly, standing up. She followed him into the next room. It was tiny, with only one small window and no furniture except a few metal chairs. The door opened and another detective walked in.
“Listen, bitch, Kim Gwangbae already sang. Why are you dragging this out?” the new man said in a coarse Gyeongsang dialect.
“Then let me see him. If you have us confront each other, you’ll get the truth, right?”
“This bitch still looks like she’s got some energy left. You wanna leave here as a corpse, or what?”
Shinhye realized their viciousness and brutality weren’t just an act they put on to intimidate her. She could tell from their tone of voice and their eyes that they truly hated her enough to want to kill her. And yet she couldn’t understand why they would hate her so much. As far as she knew, she hadn’t done anything to deserve such hatred.
“Sit down,” Detective Cheon said.
Just as she was about to sit down to obey, the other detective suddenly slammed his fist into her head.
“Who told you you could sit there? On your knees!”
She got out of the chair and knelt on the floor, head bowed. Her legs were shaking.
“I’ve seen a lot of bitches like you.”
Detective Cheon’s leather shoes jiggled in front of her nose.
“Still wet behind the ears and you think you know everything there’s to know about the world. Just flapping your mouth like a communist. Do you know why we call communists ‘Reds’? It’s because they’re just like you. Every time they open their mouths, what comes out is a fresh, red lie. That’s why we call them Reds.”
“I’m not a Red.”
“Well, like you say, maybe you’re not, but…”
He bent down and lifted her chin with his hand.
“Do you know what you’ll be when you get out of here? You’ll be a Red for real. No question about it. Wanna bet?”
She thought he was probably right. It had happened to people she had known. A lot of them, after being arrested and serving time in prison, had become hardened like steel, even more determined leaders. But Sooim had always called her an incurable skeptic—could the same thing happen to someone like her?
“This is your last chance. Are you gonna tell us everything nicely or what?”
“What do you keep wanting me to tell…I’m really frustrated, too.”
“So you wanna hold out to the bitter end? Fine.”
Detective Cheon made her get up from the floor and sit in the chair again. He pulled her hands behind her back, cuffed them, and ordered her to tilt her head up. The other detective leaned his weight on her, bending her head back and down. She saw the dim light of an old fluorescent and then nothing: they had covered her face with a handkerchief. Until then, she had not understood what they were going to do to her. It was only a thin piece of cloth that covered her face, but it seemed to cut her off from the whole world, and suddenly she was overcome with the fear that she was just a corpse.
What am I trying to protect by enduring this fear and pain? she thought. But sadly, she had nothing to protect. She had just fallen into a trap without even knowing why. Perhaps if she had come with a purpose, as these two men suspected of her, if she had actually done such work, she might have found it easier to resist. If I only had a reason to lay my life on the line, she thought.
Suddenly something cold poured down her face, and by the time she realized what they were doing, she was already overcome by a suffocating pain. They held her hair in one hand, her chin in the other, and jerked it from side to side. With each motion the water rushed into her nostrils. She couldn’t breathe. She heard the oscillation of Detective Cheon’s voice.
“You know where you are? Right under the nose of the 38th parallel! A bitch like you dies in here—we drag you up there and bury you, and that’s the end of it.”
“Why bother goin’ up there?” said the man with the Gyeongsang dialect. “We got abandoned mines all over the place. Just stick her in one of them and cover her up and no one will know till Judgment Day.”
Her nostrils filled with water again. It came in waves. One would recede and then another would come crashing in.
“Mommy!”
It was as if her body were sinking forever, but there was no bottom. She felt a terrible dizziness that reminded her of being seasick, and when she shook it off and came back to herself, she suddenly felt a wetness on her thighs. She heard a voice in Gyeongsang dialect:
“What? The whore just pissed herself!”
She collapsed onto the floor. Her face pressed against the cold cement, the lower part of her body soaked. But she felt no embarrassment or shame, just a simple relief because the torture had stopped.
Just then the door opened and someone entered. Stretched out on the floor, Shinhye saw his shoes come toward her.
“What the hell are you two doing?”
It was the chief of the anti-communist section she’d met when she first arrived. He started scolding them as if he were furious.
“What is this? Give her a change of clothes! Are you gonna leave her like this?”
The one who spoke in dialect left the room grumbling to himself, displeased with something. Shinhye remained on the floor, not moving. She didn’t have the strength to get up and her clothes were ruined. She even had trouble breathing. After a long while, the man returned with a baggy pair of men’s pants and underwear still in its packaging, as if he had just bought it at a store. A belt was still looped through the pants; it must have been worn by someone, but she was in no condition to figure out who. The chief opened the door to an empty room and told her to go in there and change. She staggered to her feet and took the clothes in her arms, amazed that she could still walk on her own. The pants didn’t fit, and when she tightened the belt as far as she could, it looked ridiculous, like she was wearing a canvas sack. When she returned, she found only the chief seated behind the desk waiting for her. She did not see the other two men—they were gone.
“You know, I have a daughter your age,” the chief said. “She’s a college student in Chuncheon. Parents are all the same. Wouldn’t it break your mother’s heart if she knew you were suffering like this?” His voice was full of sympathy.
Shinhye thought it might just be a clever interrogation trick, but she didn’t care. Even if it was hypocrisy or calculation, she was grateful to be treated like a human being. Her throat tightened and tears welled up in her eyes. And then she broke down and began to cry. She could not stop crying.
“Go ahead,” the chief said. “Cry as much as you want. It’ll make you feel better.”
After a long while, he gave her a wad of toilet paper from a roll. She used it to wipe her tears and blow her nose.
“I know you’re suffering, but believe me, it’s hard for us, too. Who would enjoy this kind of work? So…” He slid a piece of paper in front of her. “…wouldn’t it be better to put an end to this suffering for both of us? Instead of complicating such a simple matter, why don’t we just hurry up and get this over with?”
Still sniffling like a child, Shinhye began reading the typed statement, but she barely managed to get through a few paragraphs before she was again seized with dizziness.
The typewritten words began to flicker then squirm like individual insects that joined into a frantic swarm. I, the undersigned, a student on indefinite suspension for organizing an illegal assembly during my fourth year at XX University in Seoul…in solidarity with the workers to overthrow the government…with the goal of raising political consciousness among the mining community…approached Kim Gwangbae…
“Just print your name and sign here, and it’ll all be over. Then you can get out of this place right now. It’s simple.”
“But how can I confess to things I didn’t do?”
“Look, I can’t just let you go. This has already been reported to the top. We have our own reputation to protect. So just cooperate and we can resolve this with a little warning…. You get what I’m saying?”
“But this isn’t true.”
“You’re still not getting it. You want to quibble over what’s true and what’s not? Then we’ll have to start all over again, from the beginning. It wouldn’t do you any good, and we’re getting tired of this!”
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”
“I’m telling you—this is nothing. It’s just a formality to let you go. Don’t you understand?”
When she didn’t reply, his expression hardened for a moment, and when he spoke again, it was clear that he was trying hard to control himself.
“You really are as stubborn as they said. But you don’t have to resolve this right now. I’m giving you one last chance, so go back to your cell and think it over. Understood?”
When they took her back, the cold and dirty floor had never felt more comfortable. She immediately collapsed onto it.
But lying there, she couldn’t sleep for some reason. She shivered repeatedly with chills, and every part of her entire aching body seemed to be on fire. And yet she remained painfully fixated on the idea that she had to forget everything and get to sleep. Even as she nodded off and began to dream, she kept telling herself that she had to get to sleep. Familiar faces appeared in the blurry mirror of her consciousness, looking at her, talking to her, and she couldn’t tell if it was in a dream or in reality.
“Shinhye, don’t give in to the darkness. We’re still inside the tunnel of history.”
It was Sooim talking. But what the hell was in that tunnel? Shinhye wondered. When was there ever a time when we weren’t in the tunnel of history? My whole life I’ve been walking inside a dark tunnel of pain, a tunnel that never ends, with a dim light in the distance, not even knowing if that light is real or just an illusion. She saw her mother’s face and the faces of friends she’d met at the evening classes when she worked at the factory in Seongnam. And then the faces of the many people she knew, even the faces of people she had entirely forgotten. Gradually, she fell asleep.