The Aquariums of Pyongyang_ Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag - Chol-hwan Kang [67]
The death of compassion was responsible for worse acts than this. I saw fathers, released from the camps with their bodies broken and depleted, turned out of their children’s homes, hungry mouths with nothing left to give. Sometimes the fathers were left by the side of the road to die of hunger. Only their demise could bring any good, by clearing the way for the family’s possible rehabilitation. The system seemed specifically designed to stamp out the last vestiges of generosity.
I thought I would never be rid of my hatred for the cruelest guards and informants, and that I would never let go of my desire for revenge. But when I finally got out of the camp, all I wanted was to throw out my memories like a dirty shirt. That was just me, though. There were people whose hatred never abated—people like Kim Song-chi. The only thing that sustained him through his imprisonment was his desire for revenge. In the old days, he had been a Party cadre in Japan. He was a big, beautiful man, with a deadpan sense of humor and sex appeal that had caused numerous scandals over the years. He had entered the camp in 1974 at age fifty-five and survived fifteen years there—a rare achievement for someone without a family. Always discreet, he was meticulous about not bothering others and had a rule about never asking anything of anyone. He had an exceptional ability to master his hunger, and I never once saw him wolf down a meal. He was still at the camp when I got out, but a little later I heard that he had been released. On rejoining the outside world, he discovered that his wife had divorced him and found a new husband and that his children had forsaken him as an enemy of the people. This only redoubled his desire for revenge. At the camp, he was nicknamed the Count of Monte Cristo, and he now demonstrated just how worthy he was of that title. He tracked down and assassinated the security agents who had arrested him and then, the rumor went, killed himself.
Toward the end of 1985, my family had a new and very serious cause for concern. My uncle the chemist, whose work in the distillation plant was a source of much benefit to the family, fell precipitously from his pedestal. Had vengeance been the cause? Was someone trying to remind him he was still just a no-good criminal? Whatever the reason, one day he was moved to the camp’s hard-labor zone. As punishments went at Yodok, this was perhaps the worst, and few survived it. The work was conceived solely for the purpose of driving prisoners to their graves. Under close armed surveillance, my uncle was forced to toil without respite from morning until night. The work took place in a remote part of the camp; indeed, so remote that my uncle didn’t even have time to return to his hut at night, but instead had to get his three or four hours of sleep on-site. Three months was the longest we had ever heard of anyone surviving under these conditions. My uncle made it through exactly forty-five days, when an agent, whose alcohol trafficking my uncle had kept faithfully concealed, intervened on his behalf and got him out.
FOURTEEN
LOVE AT YODOK
Sexual relations were forbidden in Yodok. If a couple was caught having sex, the man was sent to the sweatbox. The same rule applied to any guard who used his power to take advantage of a female prisoner. If he made it out of the box alive, he was transferred to another camp. Women were spared the sweatbox. Their punishment was public humiliation; they were made to stand before the entire population of the village and recount their frolics. Their stories were