A Dream of Lights (24 page)

I heard the river before I saw it; the clap of one wave against another, the slosh as it hit the bank, sounds so unfamiliar to someone like me who had never seen more than a stream trickling through countryside.

I smelt it too, a smell of freshness, like spring rain on mud; damp earth and wet grass.

We struggled up to the brow of a hill, pausing at the top, crouching so the moonlight couldn’t show us to any guards, looking down at the sight below us.

There it was: heaving in from some faraway distance to our right, stretching fat and wide in front of us, gliding away on our left, drifting and flowing and splashing away to some distant place. Wide and majestic, powerful and frightening.

There it was: the river, the Tumen.

Like a beast writhing or an enemy sleeping, tempting you closer, daring you to touch, waiting until you were next to it and it could turn and swallow you whole. And far away, past it, over it, through it – China.

We crouched there, watching and listening in awe and in wonder. The moon was barely a crescent, its reflection broken and glistening on the surface of the water, tossing and dancing, leaping and jiving, and the damp air filling our lungs and wetting our faces.

So much water and so far across.

My hands and my arms instinctively drew round my baby, and I peered down at his tiny face and his blinking eyes.

Is this the right thing to do?
I wanted to ask him. The water looked so deep, so cold, so dangerous.

Sook tapped me on the arm, pointing to a cluster of trees just visible on the riverbank. I nodded and we edged slowly and carefully down the hill.

“I thought it would be frozen,” he whispered. “I thought we’d be able to walk across on the ice.”

“I can’t swim,” I blurted as we reached the bottom.

“Me neither,” he replied and the shadow of him turned to me, his teeth clicking together through cold or nerves. “I don’t think it’s very deep. I think we’ll be able to walk it.”

“It’s going to be cold, isn’t it?”

We both stared around at the countryside, all its colours muted to nothing more than shades of grey and edges of black and highlights of white. Above us, the sky was pinpricked with diamonds of glistening stars, yet empty of clouds that could’ve kept out the frost. Underneath us the ground was frozen solid and charcoal in colour, but tipped with ice that crunched underfoot, and behind us barren trees stuck up like bones from a dead earth, brittle and bleached nearly white.

And in front of us? In front of us stretched a mass of blackness, of darkness, of emptiness over the river, with no edges or highlights or detail. A nothing, an unknown, a void, hiding our route and our fate from us.

“Freezing,” he replied. “But over there,” he said, pointing across the river, “we’ll be warmer again. Just think of that.”

We had only a few possession between us: some spare underwear, a cup and a plate, a knife and a fork, a few spare clothes and some rags we’d collected for the baby, all stuffed inside a bag slung over Sook’s shoulder, but he swung it round and pulled three plastic bags from it, passing one to me.

“Take your clothes off, Yoora, down to your underwear, tie them into the bag and we can keep them dry. Then when we get to the other side you can put them back on and you’ll be warm.”

I stared at him for a second, hesitating, feeling embarrassed even though the night-time hid me. Slowly I pulled off my jacket, my jumper underneath, down through more and more layers to where my baby snuggled his head into me. Cautiously I unfastened my trousers, let them fall down my thin legs into a pile on the ground, and I peeled off my shoes and shook off my socks, rolling and piling everything into the bag.

I kept my eyes away from Sook, curious yet embarrassed by his undressing and his nakedness. And I tried not to look at his body that I remembered being stronger and fitter and healthier, and instead looked at his face or his head or into his eyes.

Still tied around me, in his makeshift sling, was the baby, his eyes scrunched up tight, and his face contorted and angry, his mouth splitting open as his whispered cry complained to me.

I lifted him to my face, hoping my breath would warm his skin, kissing him on his cheek.

“Let me take him,” Sook whispered, an arm outstretched to me, a plastic bag dangling from his fingers.

“Why?” I felt astonished.

“I’m taller than you. I can keep him out of the water.”

I looked down at this tiny face, whose life I was responsible for, whose trust was solely in me.

“What about the bag?”

He sighed and shook his head. “I’m going to wrap it round his body, over his blankets and rags, in case he gets splashed. Or if I slip.”

Trusting him was still a lump in my throat, and this was the most trust I could give anyone. This was my baby’s life. I paused. Thinking. Waiting. For what? I didn’t know.

“Yoora…”

“I know, I know.” I sucked in a deep breath and passed my baby to him with guilt already pulling at me, and grief and anger standing by ready to assail me. I watched Sook take the baby from his sling, rewrap his blankets and old clothes so they cushioned his head, and wrap the plastic bag round his tiny body. I watched him place the baby back in his sling, and helped tie it round his back, hoisting the baby as high as possible, up on his chest, tucked under his chin.

And together we stepped out from the protection of the trees and with everything we possessed tied round us, took the few steps to the water’s edge.

My skin didn’t just prickle with the cold, it screamed with it. Every muscle tensed and every nerve ached. My body shook and my breath came stuttering and painful in my lungs. I followed behind Sook as he stepped over the frozen earth, hard and painful underfoot, jabbing into my toes or my heels, sucking the heat from them with every step.

At the river’s edge the mud gave way to stones, pressing and cutting into my skin, and I took every step on tiptoe with my body tense and my arms in the air to keep my balance. My eyes flitted up and down the riverbank, this side and that, searching and checking as much as I could, scared, so scared, of guards waiting for us, watching us with guns raised, eyes peering down sights and fingers on triggers.

And smiles on their faces.

The darkness, the hint of light from the moon, the shadows, all played tricks on me, shapes hidden, moving, closing in. And the sound of the water was closer now, clearer, louder. The slosh and flap of it as it sucked over the stones near my feet. And I heard Sook’s breathing, going from steady, slow and heavy to a sudden stop, to small gasps tightly drawn.

I lifted a foot and placed it down, and the shock made me gasp, made me hold my hand over my mouth to stop myself from crying out. It was so cold. So incredibly cold.

It was a thousand needles in my skin, a million blades in my toes, it was pain like shard after shard after shard of pointed ice, pressing and spearing and driving into me.

And my other foot went down into it. Yes, it hurt. Yes, it was cold, more than cold. But no, I wasn’t going to give up.

I watched Sook’s back, his shoulders tense, the lumps of his spine straining against his skin, and he turned his head to me with a question in his eyes, and I nodded, and he carried on.

With each step, the water reached further up me. My ankles, calves, knees, thighs. When it hit my stomach I gasped in pain and shock, holding my breath, then let it out quickly, breathing in and out in short bursts, too painful to suck right into my lungs. My head began to spin, and I felt panic tearing through me, thoughts and images flashing by of Sook falling, my baby drowning, of a gunshot hitting me, my body floating downstream.

Stop it
, I told myself.
Stop it, stop it.

I thought again of my grandfather and imagined him at my side, mimicked his steady breathing and his calm, and I took one careful breath after another, remembering his words –
One step at a time, one foot in front of the other.

The water crept up to my chest, but I thought only of my breathing, and of one foot lifting, moving, stepping down, and the next lifting, moving, stepping down. I watched clouds of warm air form in front of me as I breathed, then disappear away on the cold breeze.

How much further? How much deeper? No, don’t think that. What about the baby? No, enough
, I told myself.

The cold was bitter, painful, aching, hurting. My body was heavy and my legs were numb. The riverbed turned from stones to mud, and I felt my feet slip and slide as I struggled for every single step. Still the water became deeper. Blood pounded in my ears, something floated by me, touching my leg, grass or weeds. I looked up at the sky so dark, the stars shining bright. And across to the other side, a black void.

Closer now
, I thought.
I must be.

Sook turned again, his face awkward and pained, his skin ghostly, and I could just see my baby. Sook turned back again, and as he did, the crescent moon moved behind clouds and everything disappeared.

How much deeper?
I thought.

I walked forward still, a slosh, a splash, the current licking against me. Forward. In blackness. In emptiness. The water on my neck, my chin tilted upwards.

How much deeper?

Still dark.

They can’t see us
, I thought.
Even if they are there. They can’t see us in this dark.

I breathed deep and calm. Heard the quietest murmur from the baby, a gentle
shhh
from Sook, and the water was still at my neck.

Forward. Forward
, I told myself. I counted. To five, and the water was on my shoulders. To ten, and I thought maybe, just maybe it was a little lower. To twenty and it was on my chest. And the sounds changed, almost imperceptibly, the glide of my arms on the surface, the slap of waves on the banks.

I sighed. Heard Sook some distance ahead of me, his legs splashing, it seemed, out of deep water, shallower, longer strides. And I felt a smile of relief dare to stretch on to my face.

Another step forward. But the ground slipped and disappeared from under my feet, a drop suddenly in front of me, my footing lost, the water suddenly deeper, tricking me. I fell backwards, my arms flailing through nothing, my feet with no ground to rest on. My body slipped under and my head was below the water and the cold squeezed at my lungs and stole away my breath.

I could see nothing, feel nothing but cold, icy, sharp daggers all over me. Sound was muted and confused. Fear and panic gripped me and pulled me down. I felt my head break the surface, sucked air into my lungs. Tried to shout out, but was under again. My legs kicked out, my arms thrashed. Again my head was clear. “Sook!” I shouted, but again was down.

I felt so weak. I couldn’t fight. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t find the ground beneath me or the air above me. My head pounded and my lungs screamed and burned. A moment of calm fell over me. Pinpricks of light danced in front of my eyes. My legs stopped kicking, my arms hung by me, my body drifted with the current.

This is it
, I thought.
This is as far as I go.

In those seconds, I believed it.

I had done so much, achieved so much, fought so much, but that was enough now. That was me done.

I’m sorry, Grandfather
, I thought as the water foamed and bubbled around me,
but there are no more steps to take.

I’m sorry, Grandmother, for making you angry.

I’m sorry, Father, for not believing you.

I’m sorry, Mother, for not arriving sooner.

And I’m sorry, my little baby boy, that you’ll never know me.

I had made it so close to freedom.

But hands grabbed me and the air woke me. Then his face was in front of me, staring and gasping, his body shaking, water dripping from his hair, down his face and mixing with his tears as he held me upright with more strength than I thought possible.

Sook.

I sucked air deep into my lungs, my head and everything around me spinning and turning and tilting. My legs weak under me, my body shaking so much I couldn’t keep still. His arms wrapped round me and his hands holding mine guided me to the shore, barely ten more paces away, and gently he lowered me to the ground next to where he had placed my baby.

I was alive.

I looked at them both.

We were alive.

With dry clothes on, we stood together on the riverbank looking across the expanse of water to our old country, hiding in darkness a few hundred metres away. All those secrets, all those people, all those lies, all believed true. Would things change now they had a new leader? Would we ever know?

I sucked in a breath of air fresh and clean. Air of freedom. Air of my future. And I turned and smiled at the boy, no, the man, standing next to me, who was the beginning of this journey so far back in time and in memory, so far away in that village.

I was lucky. So lucky. And that I would never forget.

In my arms, the baby cried. We moved away from the bank and up a slope, hiding in the undergrowth while I fed him, worried still that we might be seen, might be found. Maybe there weren’t any soldiers or guards that night on that stretch of river, maybe they just didn’t see us, maybe they were grieving too much for their Dear Leader to be able to see through their tears. It didn’t matter.

I listened to the quiet sounds around me: the rush of water, the rustle of leaves, the snuffle of the baby as he fed, the breathing of the man I loved next to me and I felt calm.

“You should call him Hyun-Su,” Sook whispered. “After your grandfather.”

Of course
, I thought.

I looked out over the river, remembering the different life that I’d left behind over there, along with all those I had loved so much: my mother and father, my grandmother and, of course, my grandfather. The bravest man I had known, a man I knew I would never see again, who blamed himself for everything that befell us, just as I felt the blame lay with me. Who had saved me with his actions, but even more so with his words.

The sky began to lighten as the sun reached out for a new day, a new life for us. Orange and yellow and red bleeding across the blue, so bright that it hurt my eyes and obscured everything else from view.

Above me I heard a noise and lifted my head to the sky and saw the most beautiful sight: a formation of geese, a V shape, their long necks stretching forward and their wings easing through the air.

It’s late for them to be migrating
, I thought.
But at least they’re going.

Still in my pocket was that postcard – the city of my dreams, the city of lights. I would keep it, for if things became hard, for if I started to doubt whether or not we would make it. And I would remember those windows lit orange or yellow or white, the red jostling with green on street signs and the pink with blue on shops flashing neon letters and symbols, and the smells of food drifting from restaurants and takeaways, and the rhythms of the music.

I would remember that it was real. And that one day I wouldn’t need the postcard any more because I would be there, I hoped, and it would be all around me. And on that day, I would rip that postcard in half, and in half again and again, and I would release the pieces on the wind like dry leaves dancing on the breeze.

I stood up and took a deep breath in, and with Hyun-Su in my arms and Sook at my side, my new family now, I smiled and turned away from the river.

How many miles I had travelled, I had no idea. How many more were ahead of me, I didn’t know either. But I wasn’t worried any more and I wasn’t scared.

Remember Grandfather
, I told myself,
remember his words
.

And I took one step.