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Yet love endured, in spite of everything. It even had its heroes, like the thirty-year-old fellow who arrived at the camp in 1986. He was a good-looking man, and well built, too. According to the numbers floating around camp, he had been intimate with at least twenty-eight different women. His success came in spite of, or maybe because of, his reputation as a Don Juan. His pleasure did come at a price, however, for his conquests cost him three trips to the sweatbox, each lasting three months. No prisoner had ever survived so many repeated stints, but he got out safe and sound every time, on his feet and able to walk without help, as though nothing much had happened. We called him the man of steel. His hardiness and sexual prowess made him one of Yodok’s most celebrated and honored prisoners. Even the security agents were impressed and treated him with a certain deference.

I don’t know whether he is still alive, but if he is, I am sure he can be found in camp number 15, because every tour in the sweatbox added five extra years to his prison sentence.

FIFTEEN

SOJOURN IN THE MOUNTAIN

My last two years in the camp were not as trying as the previous eight had been. From 1985 to 1987, I was lucky enough to be transferred to a less difficult detail in a remote part of the camp, where I was able to find relative solitude and extricate myself from the familiar routine of paradox and cruelty. The paradox was in the nonchalance of the guards, in their lack of interest, ultimately, in how we were performing our work, and in the cynical black humor we ourselves deployed as a defense against our dreadful existence. The cruelty was in the punishments and accidents. Yet there were also adventures, enjoyable ones even, which I still recall with a certain fondness.

One day in May, while a couple dozen youngsters and I were up in the mountains gathering wild ginseng for a campaign to “support the Great Leader by earning dollars for the Party,” we suddenly found ourselves nose to nose with a bear. A friend of mine who had gone off to urinate had seen a moving black mass and, to convince himself that it was nothing, threw a rock at it. The bear roared with anger and started chasing us. Never had I imagined that such a big animal could run so fast! Fortunately he lost interest fairly quickly. We ran a bit farther, then stopped in the middle of a field. We stood catching our breath when we suddenly realized that wild ginseng was growing all around us. The bear had served as our guide!

Thanks to the kindness of certain guards, I also had the good fortune of being selected, along with two other prisoners, to be a shepherd. This task was more difficult than one might suppose because we were responsible for several hundred sheep, whose number was continually being verified. Yet the job provided relative freedom, along with a steady supply of sheep’s milk, a handsome supplement to my ordinary diet. When my traps worked, I was also able to catch an occasional rodent or snake. Then from April to August 1986, I was given the even better position of assistant beekeeper, which allowed me to benefit from the confidence of the guards, who harvested honey behind their superiors’ backs.

Having come to know the mountain well, the guards often ordered me to assist with burials. The one I remember most was that of Kim Su-ra, a young girl who died on February 16, 1986, the anniversary of Kim Jong-il’s birthday. She was the only girl in a family of five children, and she was very beautiful. The poor girl had been suffering from tuberculosis and malnutrition for a long time. In preparation for the ceremony honoring our Dear Leader’s birthday, she got dressed up with all the care and energy she could muster. The annual event was often an occasion for announcing a prisoner release, and she hoped her family might be among the chosen. But she collapsed upon arriving at the ceremony and never got up again. Since we all loved her very