But even as time passed and Sook and I spoke more and more, we never talked about or queried or commented on whatever it was we had together, growing and deepening. Even though whatever we had didn’t have a future.
Not if either of us wanted a future that was safe.
Time passed. Winter passed. Spring drew away and summer arrived with long days and short nights.
We left school, both of us, and while Sook was allowed an hour’s walk to the nearest town every day to work in an office, I was given a job on the land. And as summer came, we met later, waiting longer for the dark to come and for the house to be sleeping.
That night, the one I remember so well, the air was warm and humid, close around us as we walked. We pointed out things to each other that sparkled in the moonlight, watched it dance on our faces, still with not a touch, or a kiss, or a hold of a hand. We lay next to each other on the grass, and the sky began to lighten as the sun came back round, and the first glimpses of orange and red reached up from behind the trees.
Eventually, in our sleepy way and with no regard to the consequences, we strolled back towards the village with dawn at our back and the song of birds as they woke, and we said a goodbye to each other that lingered perhaps a little too long.
He had become my best friend. With him, I felt wanted and needed. I felt awake and alive. I felt invincible.
I had become careless.
I stepped through the door and straight into the glare of my grandmother’s eyes staring at me from her bed mat. I paused, my palm still resting on the handle behind me, watching as she shook her head, waiting for her to shout at me, or call my mother from the other room, or throw something at me, or jump up and hit me. She lifted a finger and beckoned me towards her, and I tiptoed across with my insides on fire. I crouched down, sure she’d be able to hear my heart trying to thump out of my body.
“Sook?” she questioned.
I didn’t say a word, but I felt my face flush and my eyes widen before I could stop them.
“You stupid child,” she hissed.
My jaw clenched and I lowered my eyes.
“What do you think his mother would say? What do you think she’d do? You think she’d approve? Wish you luck and welcome you into the family?”
I didn’t reply.
“Or do you think she’d be disappointed and angry that her precious son would want to spend time with someone like you? And want to get back at you, at us?”
Reluctantly, I nodded.
“Of course she would, a woman like that. She’d destroy you. And it’s not just your life you’re putting in danger – you know that, don’t you? It’s all our lives. Mine, your grandfather’s, your mother and father’s. The more, the better for her. Even if we’ve done nothing wrong, she’ll think of something, make something up, and she’ll be rewarded for it. For rooting out reactionary elements or destroying the bad blood.”
I didn’t move.
“Do you understand how selfish you’re being?” she spat, and even in the half-light I could see the ferocity in her eyes and feel it eating into me. I wanted to cry. “She’ll find out, if you keep seeing him, if she hasn’t already.”
“But we’re not doing anything wrong. We’re not reactionary .”
She sighed, shaking her head. “Don’t you listen? It doesn’t matter. But anyway, of course you are – you’re seeing her son. In secret. And she’s the Inminbanjang. She’s only got to look at us and we could be taken away. What class are we, Yoora? Have you thought of that? We’re at the bottom, we’re the hostile class – we’re beulsun – tainted blood. Everyone already thinks of us as suspect; we’re watched by neighbours; parents tell their children to watch you at school.
“Why do you think you’re working on the land, a clever girl like you? We’ll never be allowed better jobs, never be allowed to join the Workers’ Party, never be allowed any of their privileges. Never leave this village. We are nothing to them. Or to anyone. And nothing will ever change. Not for you or your children or your grandchildren. This is it. There is no way for us to move up in social class. It doesn’t happen. You’re born into it, you can’t marry out of it and you die in it.”
“But Sook is—”
“What? What do you think Sook is? As low as us?” She shook her head. “Not quite the core class, not the best, or they wouldn’t be in this village. But not far off. And there is no way that she, Min-Jee, will ever let you and Sook have a relationship.”
“We could run away,” I breathed.
She laughed at me then. “Wake up to yourself and don’t be so ridiculous. You need government permission to move, a permit to travel out of the village. Where would you live? How would you survive? No one’s going to give you a job. They wouldn’t be allowed to. If she finds out,” she lowered her voice again, “she’ll destroy us. You know how it works: the sin, the crime, travels in the blood for three generations. Anything you do, three generations will be punished for it. She will find out, Yoora, if you carry on seeing him. One day she will. That’s if he hasn’t told her already.”
“He wouldn’t—”
“Don’t be naive. You have to end it. For all our sakes.” And she turned away.
I climbed back into bed, but sleep eluded me and I watched the sunlight grow brighter through the window and change my sleeping parents from vague silhouettes into real people, with worries marked on their skin in heavy lines and deep wrinkles.
All the while my grandmother’s words played over and over in my head and I thought about our family, how small it was, how we were beulsun, though no one had told me of it before. I wondered why. I wondered why no relatives were ever talked about, and no aunts or uncles, or other grandparents or cousins, ever visited. I wanted to know, I wanted to understand.
For the next few days I skulked around, avoiding Grandmother’s eye, avoiding Sook, putting off telling him the decision she was forcing me to take. The truth, the honest, painful, selfish truth, was that I didn’t want to stop seeing him. By that time, silently I loved him and, I believed, he loved me.
I missed those night-times that were a world away from my daytimes.
I saw him again a week later strolling towards me down the path with a spade in his hand and a smile edging his lips.
“Tonight? Same time?” he breathed.
I thought about telling him, thought about what I should do, but as I looked up and met his eye, as we watched each other for a second too long, I realised I couldn’t physically say the words. So I nodded.
I didn’t care about the threat. I didn’t care about the danger. Because by then I trusted him to keep me safe.
But, in a country where one person in five is a government informant, where, for a crime possibly not even committed, neighbour reports co-worker, pupil reports teacher and child reports friend, trust was a rare and reckless thing, a stupid and naive emotion. I knew that, but I didn’t think it applied to me.
My stupidity, my naivety and my guilt followed me over miles.
Winter arrived, and still I had not broken