But as I walked with this unknown boy, I felt the possibility of something – something I didn’t understand.
“Tell me,” he said, his voice warm in the cold air, “why do we have to do this?”
My heart smiled at his naivety. “They use it as fertiliser for the crops,” I replied, my own voice quiet and trembling with nerves. “Every family provides a bucketful each week, then it’s defrosted and spread on the fields. But we don’t have any toilets at home.” I shrugged, took a breath, gathered my thoughts and glanced again at his face. “We used to be given a chit in exchange. Then when we handed the chit over, we’d be given food. But that doesn’t happen any more.”
“Why?”
I paused a moment. I’d never thought why. “I don’t think there is much,” I replied. “Food, that is.” But the second the words were out, I regretted them. What would he think I was saying about our Dear Leader? That He couldn’t provide for us, the Father of our Nation? I hadn’t intended that meaning, but I didn’t know who this person was; he could be a spy, reporting back those not faithful, who would then be arrested and disappear. All for an innocent comment misconstrued.
“Because of the floods and the cold weather,” I said. “And the bastard Americans,” I added for good measure.
He nodded.
I wanted to ask him where he’d come from. Why he was here. What life was like outside the village. Who his parents were. What they did. If he knew that woman who’d been watching me. But I didn’t dare.
I struggled along with my bucket and spade and pick, my fingers stiff from the cold and the metal handle of the bucket burning my skin. Every now and then I sensed the boy’s head turn and his eyes rest upon me.
We reached the building without another word and it was strange, not because it felt awkward, but the opposite; because the silence between us didn’t feel empty, it felt comfortable and natural, like there was no need to speak.
Our buckets were emptied when we arrived, our chits, despite them being unnecessary, were given and together we wandered out.
“My name’s Sook,” he said, tilting his head towards me.
“Yoora,” I replied.
He smiled, and I watched his eyes flit over me. “You look hungry.”
I didn’t reply. Weren’t we all?
“Here,” he said and pulled his hand from deep inside a trouser pocket.
My eyes struggled against the cold, trying to focus, frowning at a bun sitting in his palm. I shook my head. Nobody, nobody, gave food away for free. “I can’t take that,” I said.
“Please,” he whispered.
“But… where did you get it? The… the markets are miles away and you’d need a permit to go… and…”
“My mother bakes them. Then sells them.”
“But I don’t have any money.” I knew how valuable it was, was sure she’d miss even one.
“Just take it,” he said.
I reached out my hand, my fingers long, stretching, daring, and I didn’t care who his mother was or where she got the ingredients from or whether this was going to get me into trouble or not. I just saw food, and I just wanted to eat.
Hunger does strange things to a person, and I had been hungry for a long time.
I held the bun in my fingers, turned away from Sook and lifted it to my mouth and nose, closed my eyes and smelt it, stretched out my tongue and touched the crust, gently. My mouth watered and slowly, slowly I sank my teeth into it.
It was so good.
“I have to go,” I heard him say. “My mother will be expecting me.”
I turned to him, not chewing, just holding the piece of bun in my mouth, enjoying it for as long as possible.
“I live up there.” He pointed to the biggest house in the village, with far more rooms than the two we had. I knew the house: it used to have an orchard in the back before the village kids destroyed it looking for apples, stripping off the fruit and the leaves and the bark and everything. It had been empty since the last family were taken away for treachery. “We moved in yesterday,” he said.
He paused a second and I watched him look left and right and back to me. “Meet me sometime,” he whispered.
My eyes shot to him.
“After the sun’s gone down.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I simply stared at him, not believing what he’d said. But I caught movement behind him and I saw her, the woman from earlier. She was marching towards us, her black hair scraped away from her face, her hooded eyes piercing.
I didn’t stop to reply, or wait to see who she was, or what she wanted. Instead I muttered an apology, spun round and walked away.
I headed home thinking of my family: my mother and father who would be going to work, both thin and tired, hardworking despite the hunger in their bellies that was never sated. I thought of my grandparents: at home all day, too old, too weak to work, their skin stretched like old leather across their bones, their eyes hollow with sadness and disappointment, my grandfather’s stomach growling with hunger like a beast inside slowly dying.
I should share this bun with them, I thought, staring at it in my hand. But how can I explain where it came from? What will they think?
I took a guilty bite, and another, and before I even realised, there was too little for me to take home. So I finished it, and it was wonderful: the anticipation as I lifted it to my mouth, my senses screaming as I sank my teeth into it, that wonderful thick feeling as it slid down my throat. I missed proper food so much, couldn’t remember what a full stomach felt like, or what it was like to not be hungry.
When I neared the house I could hear voices, low and mumbling, lifting and dropping again, and I slowed my pace, trying to make out what they were saying as they spoke over each other. I stepped closer, resting my hand on the door. The wood creaked.
The voices stopped, and I stood for a moment, waiting for someone to speak again. But nothing came. I took a breath, steadied my face and stepped into the house.
The tension was palpable; my mother standing next to a cupboard, pushing the drawer shut as she watched me, my father at the fireplace, my grandparents seated at the table. I felt their eyes, all of them, upon me, all with the question behind them – What did she hear? But the guilt I was trying to hide was from eating the bun all by myself, not from overhearing their conversation. Yet I knew for the first time, as I stood watching them, that something, some secret, was being shared in my house, only it was not being shared with me.
It scared me.
“I’ve met somebody new in the village,” I said, hoping for the tension to ease. “He lives up in the big house.” I looked around, expecting curious glances and inquisitive faces, but instead saw my father fidget, heard my grandfather’s intake of breath, saw their eyes shoot to each other, and my mother’s almost imperceptible shake of her head.
“Stay away from him,” hissed my grandmother, her eyes narrowing at me as if they could see the smile he’d brought to my face earlier. “We don’t have any business with them. Remember your place, Yoora.”
Uncomfortable, I looked away, and saw my grandfather’s eyes drop. “His mother’s the new Inminbanjang,” he whispered.
“What?” I asked, staring at him.
But my mother was marching towards him, wagging her finger in his face. “No,” she whispered. “She doesn’t need to know. She’s only fifteen.”
“Know what?” I whispered back.
Over