The Beloved Daughter (7 page)

“Little daughter,” the Old Woman remarked one afternoon, “in the past weeks, you have told me about your friend Mee-Kyong. You have told me about the tragic events that led to your detainment here. You have told me about your mother and about the way she lost hope so many years ago. But you have not told me anything about your father. Why do you think this is?”

I sighed. In the refuge of the Old Woman’s cell, I found a rest my spirit never knew before. The Old Woman taught me hymns, the songs that my Mother refused to let me hear for fear that I would end up in a place like this. I listened for hours as the Old Woman voiced her prayers of praise and thanksgiving to the God whom I forsook so long ago.

I never before met anyone like the Old Woman. While Father’s faith was bold and reckless,
the Old Woman’s love for her Savior was peaceful and pure, as soft as the gentle spring breeze that caressed my face so many years ago. I still didn’t understand why the guards allowed the Old Women to engage in such overt displays of faith. Nor could I fathom why they gave the Old Woman extra rations, why they spoke to her in hushed, almost reverent whispers, why they treated her with the deference and respect due a member of the Dear Leader’s family and not a prisoner in confinement. While a guest in the Old Woman’s cell, I was never hit, berated, or intimidated by a single guard. I longed to ask about the mysterious history of my hostess, but for the past two weeks, she listened only to facts about my life without offering any information about her own.

And now the Old Woman had her arm wrapped around me and was running her fingers through my hair as she did so many times. I had suffered so much at the hands of others that the Old Woman’s touch was at times actually painful for me to endure. And yet I couldn’t pull myself away but felt somehow cleansed and renewed, as if healing flowed from the Old Woman’s very fingertips. “I think today is a good day for you to tell me about your father,” the Old Woman said. There was a certainty in her voice that I couldn’t argue with.

I sighed. Until the day she died, my mother and I kept our agreement to never speak of Father. I didn’t even know how to talk about him anymore. Where should I start the tale? And once I started, how could I find the words to describe the end of his history?

But the Old Woman was waiting, drawing the words out of my mouth with her intense gaze.

“Father was always strong,” I began, and for what must have been nearly an hour, I told the Old Woman about Father and his unwavering faith, which at one time had seemed more steadfast than the very mountains that surrounded my Hasambong hometown.

“He sounds like he was a very courageous man,” the Old Woman commented after I described my father’s refusal to conceal his faith when we still lived in our small cabin in North Hamyong Province.

“Yes. He was my hero,” I replied. “When I was a child, I wanted to grow up to be just like him.” I looked over at my cellmate to see how she would respond.

“And are you like him, righteous daughter?” probed the Old Woman. I still wasn’t used to the way the Old Woman could discern my every thought.

“No,” I answered, shaking my head. “When I first came to Camp 22, I was mad at Father.” I told the Old Woman about my experience as a twelve-year-old in the detainment center under Agent Lee’s cruel custody. “As a child I was so proud of Father’s courage and faith. But each time Agent Lee came in to beat me, I grew more and more furious at Father for not signing the statement like they demanded. And angrier at God, too,” I confessed, though my doubts seemed foolish in light of the faith that radiated from the Old Woman. I looked at her to see her reaction to my words.

“The Lord remains faithful even if we are faithless,” the Old Woman observed. “Little daughter, did not the apostle Peter also turn away in fear and deny his Lord?”

I nodded, remembering the story that Father taught me as a child. “Never be like Peter,” Father had exhorted me. If only Father knew the future that awaited him, I thought in the Old Woman’s cell, he wouldn’t have made such a bold admonition.

“After ten days in underground detainment,” I continued, “the National Security agent came and told me that I could start school in the main camp.”

The Old Woman furrowed her eyebrows. “Why did they release you? And so suddenly?”

I couldn’t stop the hot tears of shame that flowed down my cheeks. I hoped that the Old Woman would say something to fill the silence, but she was quiet.

“They let me go,” I admitted and tried to take in a deep breath, “because my father signed the confession after all.”

I hung my head and longed for some cleansing ointment to wash away the disgrace I felt at Father’s defeat. While I was in detainment, my father’s stubborn faith infuriated me. After he signed the confession, however, I had no choice but to believe that God failed him. And that thought terrified me more than all of Agent Lee’s torture devices combined.

“And did they release your father then, too?” the Old Woman inquired.

“No,” I whispered, desperately trying to fight away the grief that threatened to consume me. I wanted to end Father’s history there, but the Old Woman continued to stare at me, and I continued to speak.

“After he signed the confession,” I went on and lowered my eyes, unable to meet the Old Woman’s penetrating look, “my father hanged himself in his cell.”

I cried quietly into the Old Woman’s shoulder until a moan of agony welled up from deep within my soul. I was powerless to control its volume. Trembling, I let the Old Woman hold me, certain that if it weren’t for her strength and unshakeable faith, I would lose myself in a torrent of grief and hopelessness from which I would never recover.

The Old Woman rocked me in her firm embrace as we sat on the floor. A cautious guard approached our cell but was sent scurrying away with a flick of the Old Woman’s wrist.

“He was always so strong,” I lamented, unable to forget Agent Lee’s horrid descriptions of my father’s torture, the punishment that was so cruel and so inhumane that even my faithful father crumbled under its weight. For the next seven years, I lived in a hopeless, godless stupor. Father’s suicide stripped me of any remaining faith in God’s mercy or power. I was alone in a world where God was not omnipotent, where his justice and goodness did not prevail.

Yet here in the Old Woman’s cell, light was able to penetrate the veil of obscurity that hung over me for so long. Miraculous healing saved me from certain death the day I was brought to the Old Woman. I still didn’t know how I ended up as her cellmate, but I was convinced that if it weren’t for the Old Woman’s prayers on my behalf, I would have died from my illness.

Even after my health was restored, I felt God’s presence again and again: in the peace and tranquility that washed over me like a soothing balm when I listened to the Old Woman’s prayers, in the longing and desire that stirred in my soul when she sang her dulcet hymns, even in the incredible way we were protected from any harsh treatment from the guards. It was as if an entire legion of angels was posted at the entrance of our cell, overcoming every threat of evil in this underground chamber of torture and suffering. Heavenly mercy beckoned to me, inviting me to cleanse myself from the guilt and defilement of my hopeless, godless years as a prisoner at Camp 22.

I longed to respond to this divine love and peace that called out to my soul, to hold on to it and never let it go. But whenever I closed my eyes to pray, Agent Lee’s taunting voice echoed in my mind: “Your father signed the confession this morning. He renounced his faith in God and pledged his allegiance to the Party.” When I asked if I could see my father, Agent Lee’s lips turned upward. “Song Hyun-Ki hanged himself less than an hour ago, a coward in death just like he was in life.”

The Old Woman held me close, whispering prayers over my shaking body, as I mourned my father’s defeat. Eventually, my sobbing subsided and my breathing became less spasmodic. I lay with my head against the Old Woman’s shoulder, exhausted and heavy hearted. The Old Woman stroked my face, wet from tears.

“Little daughter,” she declared after a long period of silence, “there is a God who works all things together for good. He takes horror and turns it into beauty. I do not know how he will redeem your pain and suffering, but I do know this: The tragedy of your father’s life has some greater heavenly purpose, and the story you have just told me is far from finished.”

Family

“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.” Matthew 10:21

“Little Chung-Cha,” said the Old Woman one day. The weather was getting warmer and we no longer needed the extra blankets the guards gave us at the Old Woman’s request. I was regaining my strength after years of starvation and suffering. Now more than anything, I longed to breathe the fresh spring air.

The Old Woman sat with her back leaning against the cement wall of our cell. When she called my name, I stopped my anxious pacing and sat down by her side. “Have I ever told you about my family?” the Old Woman asked. It was difficult for me to hide my surprise. In the several months I had spent in the Old Woman’s cell, she remained silent about her family. I didn’t know what made her finally decide to talk about her past that spring day, but I was eager to listen.

“Only two of my grandparents were Korean,” the Old Woman began. “When foreign missionaries first traveled to the Korean Empire, my maternal grandfather as well as my paternal grandmother both sailed over from Britain. But unlike many other missionaries, they did not just live in Korea for a few years, do good works, and then return to their lives back home. They both learned the Korean language, took Korean spouses, and died on Korean soil.

“My father was born in what is now South Korea. My mother, like you, little daughter, grew up in the mountains of North Hamyong Province. Until they found one another, Mother and Father were quite alone. It was not easy for them to be the children of Westerners, half-breeds that were never accepted by their Korean peers. They both moved to Pyongyang as young adults, my father to attend seminary and my mother to help oversee a small Christian orphanage. During the Pyongyang revival of 1906, my parents met at church and fell in love.

“At that time, marriages were still arranged by parents with the help of a matchmaker. My father and mother wanted to marry each other, so they both wrote to their parents, asking them to come to Pyongyang for a season to help them arrange the match.

“Mother and Father loved each other deeply, but for many years after marrying they had difficulty bearing children. When I was born, Father was already in his late fifties, and Mother was not much younger. By that time, the entire Korean Peninsula was annexed by Japan. Korean children were offered very limited opportunities to receive an education, so it was Mother who taught me to read and write.

“We were all still living in Pyongyang when Japan lost the Great War and the Korean Empire was divided. My parents and I tried on three separate occasions to flee to the south, but finally my parents agreed that it must be God’s will for us to remain in North Korea. At that time there was still a significant Christian community in Pyongyang.”

The Old Woman paused and looked at the cement ceiling above her. “Little daughter,” she questioned, “do you know how many Christians live in our nation’s capital today?”

At first I was sure the Old Woman was joking.
Christians in Pyongyang?
The thought was absurd. “None.”

The Old Woman smiled. “Dear child, you are too quick to believe what your school instructors taught you. There are Christians in Pyongyang just as surely as there are birds outside this detainment center. These believers may be few and scattered, with very little strength or courage, but I have seen them.” Perplexed, I watched the Old Woman as she continued staring up toward the ceiling. Her blue eyes sparkled, as if she were catching a glimpse of something beautiful and glorious taking place where I saw only cracked cement and spider webs.

“I have seen them.” The Old Woman sighed. “My parents and I suffered much during the Peninsula War of the 1950s. We witnessed many crimes. I was twenty years old when the armistice was finally signed between North and South, and by then I was in love with an officer of the North Korea People’s Army.”

The Old Woman smiled, lifting her masses of wrinkles when she saw my surprise. “Like your friend Mee-Kyong,” the Old Woman confessed, her craggy voice lifting with an air of youthful gaiety, “I also was once blinded by love and imagined it was enough to overcome any of our religious or ideological differences.

“My parents were heart-broken. My beloved officer was as whole heartedly atheist as they were devoutly God-fearers. They begged me not to marry him, but at this point the matchmakers were obsolete; it was the children who chose their spouses. This decorated, atheistic officer and I were married in Pyongyang, and by the time I was twenty-two, I had borne my husband two healthy boys.”