CHAPTER 34-3
788 Words
Mee-Kyong bent over the table, her shoulders aching from the awkward angle. The kink in her neck made it feel like she was back in the fabric-cutting line at Camp 22. She slammed her pen down and let out an exasperated huff at the sound of approaching footsteps. Did Mrs. Stern seriously expect her to be done by now? She glared at the door.
“She got you copying?” It was Benjamin.
Mee-Kyong didn’t look up. “I’ve had a cramp in my wrist for the past hour.”
Benjamin went to the bookshelf, drawing his pointer finger across each title. “That’s normal. Most students complained.”
“Students?” Mee-Kyong leaned back in her chair and flexed her tired wrists.
“You know. Secret Seminary students ... The missionaries?” Benjamin turned away from the bookshelf for a moment. “You don’t know?”
“Guess not.” Mee-Kyong had always considered Benjamin either too quiet or too stupid to offer much by way of conversation, but she’d take just about any excuse right now for a break from her transcription work. “What’s so secret about them?”
Benjamin leaned forward slightly in her direction but remained planted by Mr. Stern’s theological library. “Last year, the Sterns took in other people like us.”
“Us?” Until then, Mee-Kyong had assumed Benjamin was one of Yanji’s countless Korean-Chinese citizens.
“Refugees.” Benjamin held her gaze, and for a moment, Mee-Kyong recognized something in his eyes, something she might have noticed sooner if she looked for it. Emptiness. Fear. She tucked her hair behind her ear. He folded his arms across his massive chest and leaned against the bookshelf. “Kept them here for almost a year. Gave them lessons. Then sent them across the border.”
“They did what?” Mee-Kyong knew her hosts were fanatics, but she didn’t think they were actually insane.
“Over the border. Smuggle Scripture, things like that.”
“So that’s what I’m doing here?” Mee-Kyong gestured toward her Bible and half-empty paper. “Do they really expect me to agree ...?”
Benjamin held up both palms. “Don’t worry. They were volunteers. All of them.”
“Who would actually want to go?” Mee-Kyong understood trading Bible-study sessions for room and board, but she couldn’t fathom stealing over the border like an undercover spy, armed with nothing but Western propaganda.
Benjamin fingered his chin as if tugging an imaginary beard and sat down across from her. “Because they believe.”
She narrowed her eyes at the security man, trying to read whatever mysteries were hidden in his expression. “You’re still here. Don’t you believe?”
Benjamin shrugged. “I believe.”
“But you didn’t cross the border?”
He put his elbow on the desk and leaned his cheek against his fist. Mee-Kyong gawked, wondering how much more difficult her life would have been if Pang had hands like that. Benjamin blinked once. “No.”
“Well, it sounds like you were the only one in your right mind, then,” she declared. He grimaced slightly, the corners of his eyes drawing into themselves. “I still can’t believe the Sterns just let them go,” Mee-Kyong continued. “Do they have any idea what happens to ...?”
“They know,” Benjamin mumbled.
“So they send them out without any guidance, any defense, any provisions ...”
“Gave them three months’ wages.”
“Three months’ wages?” Mee-Kyong fiddled with the pen in her hand, forcing her face to remain neutral. “And how long did you say their training lasted?”
“About a year. Don’t remember exactly.”
She pouted. A year of training. She had been doing that for the past several weeks at the Sterns’ anyway. What was wrong with more of the same? The work was tedious, but it paid well. She had never eaten so much before. She had a closet filled with clothes from the Sterns’ daughter and could take hot baths several times a day if she wanted to. For a year’s worth of food and shelter, plus a nice cash bonus at the end, she could put up with the Americans’ extremism. And then she’d be gone. She didn’t know where, but twelve months would give her plenty of time to come up with a fool-proof plan.
She pictured Pang’s expression right before he died. You didn’t think I could make it on my own, did you? You didn’t think I could survive if you weren’t there to watch out for me. She smiled to herself. If she could just stomach twelve months locked up in this house, sitting in this den and pretending to care about Mrs. Stern’s benign deity, she could leave here with enough money to start a new life. No more selling her body or her soul. No more living by someone else’s agenda or schedule. The next year would prove horrifically dull, but if Mee-Kyong could endure labor camps and the hotel district, she could put up with a little boredom.
She picked up the pen and glanced back at the Sterns’ Bible. The pen danced on the page.
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- Writer
