How I Became a North Korean Read Online Free Page A

ice behind him like a ballerina.
    This man named Seongsik said, “You really do believe me now, don’t you? I’m a person who can make these kinds of meetings happen. I know everyone, and everyone knows me. Money? Who needs money? You need connections.”
    He tore skin from his lower lip with his teeth. He wanted my approval, the way he repeated himself made that clear. But we didn’t have much time so I interrupted him.
    â€œI learn fast,” I said. “I’ll learn anything you want.” I shut my eyes tight so I wouldn’t have to look at him.
    When I opened them, he was still shyly taking me in. The shy ones were the worst, hard to read.
    â€œWhy do you want to leave?” he asked, as if half my country, the country of his ancestors, didn’t dream of living differently.
    I was so nervous that my fingers dug arcs into my palms. “There are no good men in my country.”
    He brightened as I’d intended. “I’m a good man, I promise.”
    While the border guard smoked an imported cigarette from the many cases I’d given him to keep him happy, the Joseon man and I hurried through the ten minutes of time we had to talk—the courting time that he had bought for us.
    Money was a symbol, a disease that infected our country. It was all the money I had earned after quitting school during the Great Hunger, my life savings you could call it. I was eight whenthe famine changed everything. After the government rations stopped and the crops were flooded and destroyed year after year, my
eomma
made several trips into China’s border towns to find work and food to feed us. Our government had disappeared and everyone who had followed the rules, including my
abba,
died. I didn’t follow rules; I stole and bartered and learned quickly, and I survived. But when the government devalued our money and made our savings worthless, all my work became nothing at all. There was no present, and the future looked even worse. Then my monthly bleeding stopped, and I realized I was pregnant.
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    After that brief meeting, I continued talking with the Joseon stranger on a Chinese Telecom–wired cellular phone that I used to smuggle goods between the two countries. I delayed making decisions while I continued to work and earn yuan. Foreign currency was the only kind I trusted anymore. The same dust clouds blew behind me as I walked to the Chinese border. It opened its large mouth to receive and release dried fish, iron ore, pine mushrooms, and other goods that we floated over in plastic sacks to our Chinese partners across the Tumen River after paying our bribe. Unless we were pretty and poor—then we could pay with our bodies. I stared across the narrow bend of river at the cars and the blue- and red-tiled roofs bright in the sun and imagined who, on the other side, I might become.
    There was no dream possible on our side of the river, and a child with only a mother would be a second-class citizen. But I didn’t rush and made contact with a broker trolling our border towns for prospective brides to marry unwed Chinese men. Thiswoman with leathery hands approached me at the market, then quickly pulled me away so that we could talk in private and out of danger. She made me offers: “This man they say has one of those wobbly, not so strong hearts, but he’s a meek one—so you can do what you want!” “That one’s a farmer living in the countryside and owns a lot of livestock.” “A landowner—you know what a landowner is, right?” “And this one, this one’s a businessman.”
    â€œWhat business?” I asked.
    â€œBusiness, business,” the marriage broker replied, and looked offended.
    I thought of telling her about the baby I was carrying, how the man was a powerful local
ganbu
who had protected my growing smuggling business, and laughed out loud.
    The businessman could have