From the Fatherland with Love Page 4

  “According to the Asahi Shinbun, right-wing members of the defunct Liberal Democratic Party, the core of that opposition, are calling for the sale of foreign reserves to finance the militarization effort, and that idea is also gaining widespread backing. But another major newspaper, the Mainichi Shinbun, holds the view that in fact Japan’s foreign capital, including bonds, has been exhausted by attempts to shore up the yen. The more pessimistic Japanese economists are saying that the government is already powerless to prevent a collapse, and this isn’t necessarily an exaggeration.”

  Pak was speaking guardedly, saying only what was generally known to everyone.

  “In my view—limited as it is—Japan, with its economy in ruins, stands at a major crossroads. The opposition, which is demanding a more powerful, nuclearized military, is gaining strength, while the liberal administration now in power is allowing its base to slip away. If Japan leans toward the hardliners, it will bypass the constitutional matter and immediately go nuclear. But even though the Japanese have the technological capacity to produce nuclear weapons, they lack a delivery system, a fact that the media have shut their eyes to. They’re seriously behind in rocket technology, and they have no long-range bombers. As a result, there’s been absolutely no discussion about the risks involved in possessing even deterrent weapons, to say nothing of a first-strike capacity.

  “In any case, the effects of inflation have been severe, and financial resources, both public and private, have been decimated. Since the collapse of the yen, they’ve slapped a ‘Japan premium’ on imports not only of oil but of feed grain. The public are concerned that food and oil imports might run out altogether, and this concern only strengthens the hand of those advocating military expansion. On a calorie basis, Japan’s self-sufficiency for all foodstuffs stands at forty per cent, but for grain, including animal feed, it’s less than thirty per cent, lower than in the Republic. As the yen continues to fall, Japan will inevitably face food and energy shortages. And even as rumors of such a food crisis have spread, the US has raised the price of feed grain by a third. This has only goaded the major media into a unanimous outcry against America. The Yomiuri Shinbun said just today that many homeless people may freeze or starve to death in the coming winter.”

  Jang Jin Myeong listened to this intently. He had still not explained the purpose for his late visit. Pak wondered whether it all might simply be a preliminary test, with the essential topic of the evening yet to follow.

  “I would be interested to know your views on where relations between China and Japan are going.”

  Perhaps now, thought Pak, bracing himself, we’re finally getting down to brass tacks. The Republic was in a quandary over its own ties to China, and Sino-Japanese relations were no less sensitive an issue. If the Democratic administration in Washington continued to move toward friendlier relations with the Republic—aid in food and fuel, for example, being offered in exchange for the dismantling of nuclear facilities—the roadmap to reunification might at last be revealed. China, however, would do whatever necessary to oppose the long-sought realization of that dream, as reunification would eliminate the buffer zone between it and the United States, bringing the two countries face-to-face across a single border. Moreover, the fact that a reunified Korean military would be supplied by the US arms industry would be difficult for China to counter. The Republic’s relationship with China had thus become an Achilles heel. Rumors had spread as far as Pak’s own classrooms that, as part of efforts to create a more compatible puppet regime, the Chinese government was preparing to move the Dear Leader to an estate in Beijing once he relinquished power. But even if that were to happen, the Republic would still be subject to power struggles, secret denunciations, and surveillance. Never had the Dear Leader looked more intently at shifting currents within the People’s Army for telltale signs of rebellious elements. But hardliners would have an allergic reaction to the slightest glimpse of any peaceful reunification strategy. Giving up on an invasion of the South was for them tantamount to automatic submission to the US military.

  “Comrade Jang,” Pak said, “any discussion of China requires very careful thought. I think you understand my meaning. There is a good deal in my research that I can’t speak about lightly, even with an old friend and prominent comrade within the inner circle.”

  Jang nodded emphatically, apparently quite satisfied with this reply. Sitting up straighter in the chair, as though to adopt a more formal pose, he finally came to the purpose of his visit. He spoke with a certain tension on his face, pronouncing each word in a distinct and oddly stilted manner.

  “I have been assigned the task of informing you that you are to report to Building 3 at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. As to who has issued this order, I have only been told that this will be clarified when you arrive. A car from the Organization and Guidance Department will come for you. More than this I do not know.”

  In the morning, skylarks were singing, though the air was still cold. The cycads planted in front of the entrance to the building that housed his office were covered with frost. As he stood outside, Pak swept his eyes over the campus. The Kim Jong Il Political-Military University, surrounded by a wall some six meters in height, didn’t look like most institutes of higher education. There were no sports grounds, and the entire complex rather resembled the headquarters of a corporation. What went on inside was, of course, quite unknown to the general public. Though it was originally established as a training school for agents working against the South, the university had in recent years shifted its emphasis to the study of foreign languages, computer technology, and state-of-the-art economic theory. At the urging of his secretary, Pak had taken along his quilt-lined overcoat. The sky looked threatening, and a drop in temperature had been forecast.

  The woolen overcoat, a gift from his mother, dated from the year he joined the General Political Bureau. He had worn it ever since, having it resewn every three or four years. Each time he put his arms through the sleeves, he thought of her. She was looking after a small plot of farmland back at home. His father had died in the War for the Unification of the Fatherland. Though families of the fallen were classified as “revolutionary cadres” and granted preference for Party membership, Pak’s mother had raised her son and two daughters on her own—a life of constant struggle and deprivation. Several times a year during the famine-plagued 1990s, he had sent her food coupons, rice, and pork, but it seemed she invariably donated these to the local Workers Party headquarters. Making do with dumplings consisting mainly of pine bark, she described herself as a mere root to the great and compassionate tree that was the Dear Leader, providing what sustenance she could for its precious trunk. She would despise the sort of people who sold salvaged copper wiring on the free market to keep themselves from starving. His mother was as pure as the whitest spun silk and would be absolutely horrified if her son were denounced for some crime today in Building 3.

  The guard, a recent graduate, stood at attention at the gate. He was wearing a thin, unpadded uniform. Seeing Pak, he raised his rifle in salute. The car that was to take him arrived thirty minutes early, stopping in front of the covered entrance; no civilian vehicles were allowed on campus. The car was a German model, bearing the license-plate number 216 in honor of the Comrade General’s birthday and suggesting that it had been a gift from on high to a top-ranking official. A man stepped out from the passenger seat and opened the rear door with the words: “Professor Pak, I have come to escort you.” This assistant, whose face was unfamiliar to Pak, appeared to be in his late thirties. He sat in front, while Pak settled into the leather-upholstered seat behind him, crossing his arms and closing his eyes. With whispers of a thaw between the Republic and America as well as with the South, what business could the Frontline Bureau for National Unification have with a Japanese-language researcher? His unease only increased as the car pulled away.

  The broad sidewalk beside the Taedong was largely deserted. With Yangkak Island visible ahead of them, they moved at speed along the riverbank road toward Chang Gwang Avenue. Soon a mass of commuters would be emerging from the underground stations and heading for their various workplaces, and in another two hours or so tourist buses from the countryside would be filling the parking lot in front of the Juche Tower. Pak was quite fond of the scenery here. Amidst the concrete buildings, which he somehow still found alien after more than thirty years in Pyongyang, there was this soothing view along the river. The willows planted beside the path waved their new shoots in the gentle morning breeze. Pak enjoyed sitting on a bench, watching the boats on the river, and gazing vacantly at the far bank—or, when time permitted, taking a solitary stroll there.

  In spring, mist hung over the river’s surface; in summer, rainbows appeared after sudden showers. In autumn there were tinted leaves, and in winter the clarity of the air gave one a pleasant sense of everything merging with the river itself. When they were both still only twenty years old, he and Ri Sol Su had often walked together here. Back then, in the early 1970s, there had been food stands along the footpath that sold candied apples and deep-fried karakjippang sweet rolls. The two of them would buy a snack and sit on a bench to eat it and talk about the future or their hometowns. They had never even held hands, much less kissed.

  The bronze statue of Kim Il Sung appeared, and Pak felt invigorated by it. Compared with the immense monument newly erected in Mangyongdae, it seemed a truer representation of the Great Comrade Leader. As he gazed at the statue rising out of the mist, he reminded himself that this was no time for sentimentality, or for memories of Ri Sol Su. He was merely one man, a tiny part of a revolutionary work in progress. He was on his way to Building 3. He had to compose himself, to be prepared for whatever was awaiting him.

  As they entered the heart of the city, the car slowed down. Traffic controllers and sentries stationed at strategic points saluted as it passed. Inside no one spoke. The secretarial assistant had said nothing further, and Pak himself, not knowing why he had been summoned, was hardly in the mood to initiate a conversation. But when they stopped at a traffic light next to the Okryugwan, the Republic’s largest and most famous restaurant, the man turned around and shyly inquired whether he might ask a question. There was something unaffected about his tone of voice, and Pak found himself taking a liking to him. “Go ahead,” he said. But what came next was unexpected.

  “Have you ever tasted a brand of beer called Kirin?”

  “Yes,” Pak replied with a smile. “A few times. Why do you ask?”

  “I know it may sound decadent, but I hope that someday my allegiance to the Party will give me an opportunity to order that beer in the Okryugwan.”

  He gave a shy laugh as he said this, with the driver joining in. An ordinary worker making a remark like that might easily wind up in a re-education work camp. But a secretary to a high-ranking official in Building 3 enjoyed a degree of freedom denied to most citizens. Pak assured him that if he remained steadfastly loyal and did his utmost for the Party, that hope would probably be realized. He said this with his gaze on the Okryugwan. He could see a queue in front of the restaurant, though it was still four hours before the lunch break. Those not in the Party, the army, or the higher echelons who wanted to eat there had to be in possession of a meal coupon issued at their place of work. Some two hundred such coupons, good only for cold noodles, were handed out daily in the capital’s offices and factories, which meant that the chances of getting one on any given day were one in a thousand. Those without might wait outside in the hope of buying a coupon from scalpers, a few of whom, all disabled, had bought coupons on the black market, which they were now selling outside for inflated prices. Public Security agents turned a blind eye to this, as they were raking off part of the profits.

  Arriving at Building 3, Pak was escorted by the secretarial assistant to the reception desk and from there by a sharp-featured People’s Army officer to an elevator that took them down to Basement 2. The officer led the way along a dark and narrow corridor to a plain gray steel door, which was opened by Kim Gweon Cheol, Deputy Director of the Organization and Guidance Department’s Fourth Section.

  “Thank you for taking the trouble to visit us, Professor Pak. I hope we can dispense with formalities. Please come in and sit down.”

  Kim Gweon Cheol was a legendary figure who had attained his present position at the tender age of thirty-eight, having been a trusted associate of Jang Sung Taek, the Dear Leader’s brother-in-law. Even after the latter had been purged for pushing too eagerly for economic liberalization, Kim had survived by playing his cards shrewdly and by successfully managing the Kaesong Special Economic Zone. He had a reputation for being cold-blooded and having a razor-sharp mind. He now escorted Pak to Projection Room 1. The room was subtly different from similar facilities in other government buildings, or in art institutions and guesthouses. A little over fifty square meters in size, it had three rows of seats arranged in a fan shape facing a small screen. Pak sat down in the third row on the far right. The walls and floor were covered with thick gray linoleum; the crimson leather seats had large backs, with aluminum ashtrays on the armrests. There were a dozen other men, all wearing military uniforms and puffing away on filtered cigarettes. From the aroma Pak knew they must be Japanese Seven Stars. The tension he was feeling made him want to smoke too, but as he was reaching for the cigarettes in his uniform pocket he remembered that they were of the pungent Chinese variety and abandoned the idea. The men in this projection room probably all smoked Seven Stars on a daily basis.

  Other than a desk in front of the screen, there were no other furnishings. The floor was spotless. The oddest thing of all was the absence on the walls of any photographs of the Great Leader and his son. It was the first time Pak had ever been in a room that lacked them. Preparations for evacuation in the event of an invasion from the South called for rescuing these images first. The fact that there were none present here suggested that this was a place where no such ritual items were necessary.

  “We are about to show you a rather unusual film.”

  From the projector came a whirring sound, as the presentation began. A stout man on Pak’s left cleared his throat and stubbed out a cigarette. Glancing casually at his face, he recognized Choi Deok Cheol. Choi was now dressed in a military uniform, but three years earlier, when Pak had seen him at a banquet held at the special events hall in the Taesong District of the Workers Party, he had been wearing a smart and expensive double-breasted suit like nothing Pak had ever seen before. People who could risk wearing that sort of thing in the Republic were few and far between. Choi had for a long time been in charge of operations against the South for the Party Secretariat’s External Liaison Office and also ran the Moran Trading Company, which came under the jurisdiction of the General Staff Office Operations Department of the People’s Army. Pak’s palms had begun to sweat as the screen lit up and the film began.

  The story, set during World War II, involved a special-operations scheme initiated by the Nazis. The language was English, with no Korean subtitles or dubbing. The opening scene featured a long-faced American performing some comical stunt with a dog, and then saying that training a dog was much like training a woman. At this, all of the men in the room guffawed. This, Pak noted, meant that they all understood spoken English—a rare skill in the Republic. He didn’t puzzle over this, however, as he soon became engrossed in the film. The story was an interesting one.

  It began with the hatching of a zany idea by a low-ranking Nazi staff officer. The idea, though summarily rejected by the general staff, happens to come to the attention of Hitler himself, who arranges for it to be made immediately operational. A company of Sonderkommandos is embedded in a group of Jewish refugees on a passenger ship to New York, where they land and occupy Manhattan. They are wearing army uniforms but proclaim themselves to be anti-Nazi activists who have escaped from Hitler’s rule and come to New York to establish a new regime. Hitler declares that they are indeed rebels and informs the Allies that it is of no concern to him if they shoot them all as spies. But a number of citizens are being held as virtual hostages, and the American military can do nothing. Hitler, meanwhile, has a hidden agenda for the “rebels.” A group of preselected men within the corps, volunteers willing to sacrifice their lives, are sent to Washington to assassinate Roosevelt and other prominent politicians. One of the group falls in love with a cafe waitress, is taken prisoner, and goes over to the other side. The insurgent unit is crushed and its members killed. At the end of the movie, Hitler is seen laughing as he tells the story to those in his inner circle, his only regret being that such a promising operation did not succeed.

  The end credits rolled and the lights in the room came on, followed by the sound of the film being rewound. Kim Gweon Cheol took up a position in front of the screen.

  “Comrade Ri Dong Ho, what did you think of it?” he said to a thin man in his early fifties, who was sitting in the middle of the first row. Ri, a leading figure in the Party Secretariat’s Operations Department, had control of investment banks and trading companies in Rajin, Sonbong, and Sinuiju. Stroking his chin, he replied that he’d found the film very entertaining.

  “But I wonder if I might ask why this particular group of comrades has been selected to view it.”

  Ri turned in his seat and looked at Pak Yong Su as he said this. Pak realized now that he was, in fact, the focus of attention for everyone around him. All their faces were familiar: men with whom he had been at university, men with whom he had worked as a political officer in the GPB. What all of them, including Ri and Choi, had in common was involvement in one form or another in external sabotage operations. In the first row were Gong Chang Su, former director of the foreign section of the Policy Affairs Institute concerned with the printing of counterfeit US dollars and money-laundering; Kim Su Gweon, formerly of the GPB’s socio-cultural department, who had devised the plan for the mausoleum bombing in Rangoon; and Hwang Pung Gu, a political officer attached to the command center of the Capital Air Defense Corps and the director of a training school for anti-Japanese operations. In the second row was Ri Hyeong Sup, head of the Academy of Sciences’ Central Communications Company and chief administrator of all of the Republic’s Internet servers. To Ri’s right sat Kim Chang Bok, who gathered and analyzed information on the American military presence in Japan and the Japanese Self-Defense Force as a political officer in the Fourth Department of the People’s Army’s Main Intelligence and Reconnaissance Bureau; and to his left sat Yim Gang San, a political officer attached to MIRB’s Yellow Sea Fleet Command Center, where he managed the smuggling of shipbuilding materials through the Chinese and Russian mafia. Next to Pak was Choi Ho Gyeong, who served on the nuclear-negotiations team with the US State Department in the 1990s while covertly reporting on the proceedings to the External Liaison Office for which he worked. And next to Choi was Shin Dong Won of the KPA Defense Security Command who worked in a section primarily responsible for the stationing and transfer of troops.