Slave Again

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

Mee-Kyong slid down against the wall, clutching her abdomen and gaping at the blood on her arm. What are you sitting down for? She shivered and refused to look toward the bed. She hadn’t expected Pang to wake up. She had imagined it would be easy. Quick and painless. Merciful, even. She leaned over and vomited. Quit acting like a baby. She spat and wiped her mouth on her shirt. You need to leave, or you’ll end up even worse off than him.

She staggered to her feet and leaned against the wall for support. Her eyes caught the blood-stained blanket on the bed, and she retched again. Mee-Kyong picked up the knife and wiped it clean. At least if she had to use it again, she’d learn from her mistake and angle it right. She thought about Pang, held her stomach, and groaned once more. Nice planning, you i***t. Now you’ve got to find your way to the border by yourself. How was she supposed to make it to China without him? She could have put up with a few more days of his assaults, couldn’t she?

It’s only nerves, you wimp. Of course her stomach was a little upset. She put one hand on her abdomen and steadied herself with the other. It’s only nerves. Nerves that she would have to overcome if she was going to escape North Korea with her hard-earned freedom.

Pang had never mentioned the name of the broker who would lead them into China, but Mee-Kyong had to decide what to do before he showed up. She either needed to get away from the cabin before he arrived, or she’d have to find a hiding place for the body, clean up the entire mess, and think of a compelling lie to convince the man to help her escape without Pang.

Right now, it looked like her only real option was to run away. She couldn’t move the body by herself, not with the continuous cramping in her uterus and searing pain in the small of her back. She didn’t have the fortitude to even look at the corpse, let alone clean away the filth of death. She wasn’t about to check to confirm her suspicions, but the odor from the bedside made her guess the blanket was soiled with more than just blood. And even if she hid the body, she had no money to pay the broker.

Money. You fool. Why didn’t you think of the money? She bit down on her fist. Pang always kept his money in his pocket.

She willed her body to turn toward the bed and swallowed down another rush of bile. Even Pang’s pants were filthy. Now look at what you have to do. She straightened her spine as best she could with her swollen abdomen. She had persevered through an entire childhood in a North Korean prison camp, relying on her own wits and strength. The gulag raised her. She was born behind a barbed electric fence, but she endured. She had eaten raw rodents. She had lanced a boil with her teeth when no better medical care was available. She had survived her relationship with Pang, even though he always threatened to be the one to kill her. If Camp 22 had taught her anything, it was how to survive.

And right now, what Mee-Kyong needed to survive was an envelope full of cash.

She trudged to the bed, averting her gaze. She didn’t want to face her lover’s eyes again. The stench of death’s final humiliation assaulting her nostrils, she grimaced and crept her hand toward Pang’s pocket. She felt her way, finger after finger, until she found the cash. She snatched it out and then doubled over gagging. She tried to twist her body away, but a stitching pain in her side stole her breath instead, and she stumbled to the ground. Clumsy buffoon. Propped up on one elbow, she pressed down on her waist. Her uterus was as hard as the cement floor of the dorm back at Camp 22. Mee-Kyong shut her eyes. Her whole body felt like it was orbiting around a point just above her head. After vomiting once more, she fumbled toward the door, wondering what she had to do to forget the corpse that lay on the mattress, defiling her senses and her memory.

She didn’t even make it out of the cabin before she staggered again to the ground. Get off this cursed floor. As she rocked back and forth on her elbows and knees, anguish from her abdomen radiated through the rest of her body. Her arms trembled as she struggled to hold herself up.

The baby wasn’t supposed to come for another six or eight weeks. That’s what the nurse Pang brought from Onsong had said. Mee-Kyong planned to be safe in the Chinese interior by her due date, not stuck in this cabin next to Pang’s corpse. What was she supposed to do if her child was born here? She couldn’t bring it with her to China. She would have a hard enough time surviving by herself. How could she expect to take care of a newborn? Pang never mentioned it, but she always assumed he would whisk the baby away and get rid of it somehow. They had both hoped the Onsong nurse would take care of the problem for them, but it was too late into the pregnancy for that.

By nightfall, she was still on the floor. Her body had decided to expel the child with or without Mee-Kyong’s consent. She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. Don’t be such a sniveling wimp. In the prison camp, she had endured all of Pang’s violent outbursts; she could endure something as universal as childbirth. Like Pang’s temper, this delivery wouldn’t last forever. At some point, it had to end. The only problem was that when it was over, instead of having a lover to comfort and soothe her wounds, she would have a baby she didn’t know how to care for, a baby she didn’t even want.

No matter what happened, it had to end soon. Either she would die, or her body would evict Pang’s baby from her womb. There would be no more waiting. Mee-Kyong gritted her teeth. Drenched with sweat, she barely had time to inhale before she needed to bear down again.

Her skin burned. She clenched her eyes shut, and with one more push, she stretched wider than she thought was physically possible. Another small squeeze, almost an afterthought, brought her child into the world.

Soft fuzzy down covered near-translucent eyelids. Perfectly formed nails tipped the ends of ten wrinkled fingers. It was a boy. Mee-Kyong held him up in detached scrutiny.

Pang’s baby was dead. At least she wouldn’t have to figure out what to do with their bastard son. She struggled to clean herself up, using the already bloody blanket to wipe off as much of her filth as she could.

Repulsed by the sight of the child, she wrapped the corpse in Pang’s undershirt and shoved it away in a corner of the cabin. Her legs trembled as she dressed. You are not going to give up now. She had to survive. Who cared if she had just delivered a baby? So had every other mother in the course of all human history.

She lifted her chin, steadied herself with her hand against the wall, and staggered out the cabin door. She only made it a few steps before she collapsed. Don’t stop moving, you lazy i***t!

She got up and counted her steps until no degree of self-degradation could coax her body farther. She was bleeding even more heavily than she had been before the delivery. She was still within sight of the cabin when an aftershock gripped her uterus so tight a sob escaped.

Stand up. Her body refused to respond. She tried to blink away the blurry lights in her field of vision, but her sight didn’t clear. Forget the pain. Another contraction, the byproduct of labor, made the ground spin around her. She wouldn’t be going anywhere.

Suddenly chilled, she curled up into a ball and tried to warm up by hugging herself. If you lie down, you’ll never get back up again. She tried to resist the drowsiness that encircled her shivering, aching body, but right now she only had the will to sleep.

Tomorrow, she would continue on her journey.