The Beloved Daughter (24 page)

“Moses?” I could scarcely utter the name, which had been so sacred in my childhood memories.

“You’ve heard of me, I see.”

I felt nauseous. “You’re a guard?”

“If you’re talking about the uniform, I admit the color doesn’t suit me.” Moses’ lip turned upward in a lopsided grin. “Nevertheless, I find this shade of green much more flattering than that olive color they wear across the border. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“But … you’re Korean,” I somehow managed to stammer. “I always thought you were Chinese.”

Moses shrugged. “I left my Chinese passport at home today.”

“But even the Chinese think you’re one of them!”

“Do they?” Moses gasped. “I hadn’t heard. Is there anything else I should know about myself?”

It seemed impossible that this coarse, sarcastic officer was the same hero I once venerated.

“Did Father know?”

“Know what? That I’m a guard? Of course not,” Moses declared. “I’m no fool.”

“Then what exactly are you?”

Moses chuckled. “I’ll allow you to answer your own question. Who would you say that I am?”

The strain of my betrayal, capture, and interrogation left me very little patience. I wasn’t about to give this charlatan more respect than he deserved. “I would say that you are a brutal, violent killer who wears the clothing of a wolf, yet calls himself a sheep,” I replied, without either forethought or fear of retribution.

Moses clucked his tongue. “You forget that it was I who saved you,” he replied. “What wrong have I committed against you, righteous daughter, to deserve such wrath?”

“You wear the uniform of the enemy. That in itself is enough. And you also tricked me. I would never have denied my faith if I knew who you really were. Your deceitfulness is the worse hypocrisy of all.”

“Hypocrisy?” Moses asked and then suddenly grew quiet. “Yes, I suppose I am a hypocrite,” he mused, “in that my comrades know nothing of my work for the underground church.”

“Nor would they suspect it,” I mumbled.

“You are referring to my coarse manners? I imagine I don’t come across quite as holy and righteous as you probably pictured me. I’d like to see you survive five minutes as a National Security agent without growing even more cynical and contemptuous than the guard who just risked his life to rescue you. I don’t have the luxury to be refined and sanctified like you.”

“Which makes you both a hypocrite and a liar.” Why had I venerated this impostor when I was a child?

“Well, then, I’m sorry if I am not everything you imagined I would be.” I wasn’t sure if this was also part of Moses’ charade, so I moped for several minutes in silence.

“You think I’m a boor,” Moses finally stated. I didn’t deny it. “You should pity me instead.”

“And why should I pity you?”

Moses ignored my challenge. “Tell me. You were married in Jilin, were you not?”

I raised my head high. “Yes, I was.”

“And is your husband a righteous, God-fearing man?”

“He was until he was killed by the police.”

Moses raised an eyebrow at me, then flicked his wrist in my direction. “And did this righteous husband of yours make sacrifices for the Lord?”

“More than you could imagine,” I answered, immediately forgetting all of Kwan’s shortcomings that seemed so unbearable to live with while he was still alive.

“Tell me,” Moses pressed, “do you believe your husband will be rewarded in heaven for these sacrifices?”

“Yes.” I straightened up in my seat. “I’m sure of it.”

“Good.” Moses snapped his finger. “Thank you. You have given me much hope.”

“What do you mean?” I was weary of this agent’s impudence.

“You see,” Moses explained, “I also make sacrifices for the Lord, sacrifices that many good, upstanding Christian men would not be capable of making.”

“Such as?”

“Such as knowing that fellow Christians are terrified of me,” Moses answered. “Knowing that if they realized who I really was, they would tell me I was wrong to work for the National Security Agency.”

“So you’re defending yourself?”

“If I were not an officer, where would you be right now?” Moses contested. “And what would become of your child?”

I had no answer to give him.

“My position of authority allows me to save dozens of lives a year. And you – you, whom I just delivered – would tell me I’m sinning to keep up my work? I thought Hyun-Ki’s daughter would have more wisdom than that.”

I tried to think of an intelligent reply. “Surely there must be another way.”

“If you tell me what it is,” Moses stated with a wave of his hand, “I’ll happily announce my resignation to the head of the National Security Agency this very night.”

“But the cruelty, the torture … I’m sure you can’t save everyone there!”

“That’s why you should pity me.” Moses remarked, lowering his voice. I didn’t want to think about the implications of his words.

“Then why don’t you quit?”

“Because if I stopped working as a guard, the child in your womb would be dead by now. And so might you.” Again I had no counter to Moses’ arguments. I thought about the woman who bled to death in the Onsong jail.

“Some people would call me a coward,” Moses went on, “because I do not live out my faith openly like your father did. They don’t realize that if I confessed my love for Christ when I was first saved as a young guard, I would be dead. And so would the hundreds of Christians I’ve helped rescue over the past two decades.”

“But couldn’t God have used you in some other way?” As soon as I voiced the question, I realized how naïve it would sound to someone like Moses.

“It’s not what you typically think of as mission work.” Moses stared through the windshield at the road ahead of us. “Even now, I don’t know if my life has done more to further the kingdom of light or the kingdom of darkness. It is God alone who must decide that.”

We drove on in silence.

“The truth about my identity is not common knowledge,” Moses admitted after some time. “I don’t make it a habit to transport prisoners myself.”

“Then why am I here?” I asked. “And why did you tell me who you are?”

Moses cleared his throat. “For nearly twelve years, I’ve lived with the regret that I didn’t act in time to save your father. Every day I hoped you might find a way to escape Camp 22. First I saw the report that said you perished in a fire in the train depot, then I received word from Mr. Kim that you were under his care.”

“You know Mr. Kim?”

“I know Mr. Kim,” Moses replied. “I also know your husband Kwan.”

I was surprised that Moses was so familiar with my safe-house family from Sanhe. “How?”

Moses shook his head. “There are many things I can’t tell you.” As if hearing my unspoken question, Moses added, “Like most believers, your friends think that I am a Chinese citizen. They have no idea what I really am.” The loneliness in Moses’ voice was unmistakable.

“So you have been looking out for my protection?”

“More than you would know,” Moses answered. “I owed your father many debts of kindness. As I already told you, one of my deepest regrets is that I couldn’t help him before his death.”

“But your jurisdiction is over Chongjin. What could you possibly have done for him in Camp 22?”

Moses furrowed his brow. “Camp 22?”

“Where they took Father after he was shot at the precinct building.” I wondered why Moses, who appeared so familiar with every other aspect of my family history, now looked so confused.

“I’ve seen the death record myself,” Moses replied. “Your father died in Hasambong.”

I didn’t understand. “That’s not true,” I insisted. “Father died in detainment. He …” I stopped, unable to speak to Moses of Father’s suicide.

“Sister,” Moses said, with a gentleness I wouldn’t have thought possible beforehand, “I can only imagine what your guards must have told you when you were a young girl.” I remembered my torturer Agent Lee, his sarcastic laugh, his gleeful expression when he told me of Father’s hanging. “If I knew,” Moses continued, “I assure you that I would have done everything in my power to dispel their lies many, many years ago.”

“What are you saying?” My head was faint again.

Moses took a deep breath. “Hyun-Ki was killed by a bullet the night your family was arrested.”

I put my hand up to my head to try to control the spinning. Moses reached out and touched my shoulder. “Your father was never a prisoner at Camp 22.”

Revelation

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32

For several minutes, I could scarcely breathe, let alone speak. The weight of Moses’ words was crushing. Perhaps, beloved daughter, you would expect me to rejoice that my father’s memory was no longer tarnished by his alleged apostasy and suicide. But joy was not my initial reaction when Moses told me the truth about Father’s fate. Instead, I had to face the horrific realization that everything in my past – my heart hardening against the Lord, my decision to become an office maid, my inability years later to fully trust in God’s goodness – was based on a lie. Perhaps this was what my torturer intended all along.

Beloved daughter, how I wish that you and I had more time together so that your memories of me would be of joy and lightness and merriment. I imagine that when you read my story, you will come to know me as a wounded, pitiful character from your distant past, instead of the laughing, gentle mother I hoped to be for you. But truth can’t be changed. My life has been filled with much sadness, and I’ve shed many tears. But never do I remember crying as I did beside Moses in that van. I cried for the innocence I lost in the detainment center, for the shame I carried around in my young soul about my father’s supposed fate. I cried for my own rebellious heart, for my unwillingness to trust in God’s sovereignty when the Almighty had indeed sustained Father and gave him boldness to his dying breath.

Moses drove on in silence. By the time the Tumen River came into view, my throat was sore from sobbing, but my tears had run dry.

“They say that truth will set you free.” Moses referenced one of Father’s favorite verses. I nodded. “And now that I have told you the truth about your father,” Moses added with uncharacteristic humility, “I wonder if you would repay this unhappy guard. You see, you have some important information that I’ve been seeking for years.”

I wondered what I might know that Moses couldn’t learn from my prison records. I waited curiously.

Moses rubbed the coarse hair on his chin. “I must confess something to you. The respect I harbor for your father and the many debts of kindness I owe him were not the only reasons I chose to rescue you from the Chongjin jail.”

“They weren’t?”

Moses shook his head. “I also revealed myself to you because I hoped that you could tell me about my mother.”

I wondered how Moses expected me to understand his words. “Your mother?”

“Before she died, my mother was a prisoner in the underground detainment center at Camp 22.” Moses exhaled loudly. “Your records show that you were her cellmate for nearly a year.”

“You are Chul-Moo?” I asked when I realized that I was talking to the Old Woman’s eldest son. Moses winced at the mention of his birth name.

“I see that she told you about me,” Moses replied, and for the first time since I met him, the prison guard slouched down in his seat. I did not know what to say to the officer who was responsible for the annulment of his parents’ marriage, the murder of his younger brother, and the twenty-four-year detainment of his mother in an underground torture cell. Then I remembered the Old Woman’s words: “I am not the Lord God Almighty; I do not pretend to know his plans for Chul-Moo, which may yet be for good.”

Moses watched me intently. “Can you please tell me if my mother ever forgave me for what I did to her? For what I did to our family?”

I couldn’t help but smile when I remembered the grace and gentleness that flowed from the Old Woman. “Your mother was incapable of bitterness. She was heartbroken, I believe, but even in her sorrow she recognized that God might still take hold of your life.”

“That he did.” Moses had a distracted look in his eyes. I wanted to ask Moses how he became a Christian after condemning his entire family to labor camp, but he just stared ahead, talking as if to himself.

“I have witnessed countless atrocities against mankind. Each and every time, I tell myself that I am doing the only thing I know how to do, that the Almighty must see that my efforts are to serve him even if I am incapable of saving everybody.” I didn’t have the wisdom to either confirm or assuage the guilt on Moses’ conscience. “But the one thing I haven’t been able to forgive myself for is what happened to my mother. And my brother.”

“Your mother was full of grace and gentleness.” And as we continued to drive along the Tumen riverbank, I told Moses about my time in the Old Woman’s cell, about the miraculous healing she performed for Shin’s daughter, about the way I was healed from my deadly fever when I first met her. Moses was relieved when I told him of the privileged treatment his mother received in detainment and shocked to learn about her foiled execution so many years ago, which was never recorded in the Old Woman’s prison record.