Human Acts(30)

There were close to a hundred of us all told, wedged in so tight you could feel the knees of the guy behind you pressing into the small of your back. We sweated buckets; literally, it was like we’d been caught in a downpour. Our throats were screamingly dry, but we were only given water three times a day, with meals. I remember how savage, how animalistic that thirst was, how I would have jumped at the chance of literally anything to wet my lips, even a splash of urine would have done. And I remember the constant terror of thinking I might accidentally fall asleep. The terror of having a cigarette stubbed out on my eyelid, so vivid I could practically smell the singed flesh.

And the hunger, of course. How persistently it clung on, a translucent sucker attached to the nape of the neck. I remember those moments when, hazy with exhaustion and hunger, it seemed as though that sucker was slowly feeding on my soul.

—

Three times a day, every day, the meal we were given was exactly the same: a handful of rice, half a bowl of soup, and a few shreds of kimchi. And this was shared between two. The relief I felt when I was partnered with Kim Jin-su says something about the state I’d been reduced to at that point, a brute animal with whatever had once been human having been gradually sucked out. Why was I so relieved? Because he looked like he wouldn’t eat much. Because he was pale, with dark shadows around his eyes that made him look like he belonged in a hospital. Because of his empty, lifeless eyes.

A month ago, when I saw his obituary, those eyes were the first things I thought of. Those eyes that used to track my every movement as I fished out a bean sprout from the watery soup; that regarded me in silence as I stared with open hatred at any morsel of food that passed his lips, consumed with the fear that he might take it all for himself; those cold, empty eyes, utterly devoid of anything that could be said to resemble humanity. Just like my own.

—

There’s something I still haven’t been able to figure out.

Given that I was partnered with Kim Jin-su and ate the exact same meals as him every single day, how come he died and I’m still living?

Was it that he suffered more than me?

No, it wasn’t that. I bore more than my fair share of suffering.

Was it that he got less sleep than me?

But sleep is still every bit as elusive for me as it was for him. Even now, there’s not a single night where I’m able to snatch more than a few hours of shallow rest, rest that barely deserves the name. And it’ll be like that for as long as this life clings to me.

When you first called me to ask about Kim Jin-su, professor, it made me wonder. Even after I’d arranged to meet you, after you called again, I was still wondering. Every day without exception, those same questions niggled away at me: why did he die, while I’m still alive?

—

Do you remember, professor, that first time we spoke, when you told me that Kim Jin-su was “by no means an isolated case”? According to you, it was more than likely that many of us former prisoners would end up taking our own lives.

I suppose you thought you were helping me? Trying to save my life from heading down that same sorry track? Yes, I can well imagine that those were the kind of noble ideas you had in mind. But when it came to it, this dissertation you were planning to write, was it really going to benefit anyone other than yourself?

You explained about the “psychological autopsy” you wanted to conduct on Kim Jin-su, but I still couldn’t understand it. You wanted to record my testimony—what for? Would that bring Jin-su back to life? Our experiences might have been similar, but they were far from identical. What good could an autopsy possibly do? How could we ever hope to understand what he went through, he himself, alone? What he’d kept locked away inside himself for all those years.

—

It’s true that Jin-su did suffer some unusually brutal torture, even compared with the rest of us. Perhaps because there was something strangely delicate about him. Almost feminine. And somehow that rubbed the guards the wrong way.

But I only heard these stories at least a decade after the fact. At the time, I had no idea.

What I heard was that the soldiers made him get his penis out and rest it on the table, threatening to cane it with a wooden ruler. Apparently, they made him strip and took him out to the patch of grass in front of the guardhouse, where they tied his arms behind his back and made him lie down on his stomach. The ants nibbled at his genitals for three hours.

I heard that after he was released, he had nightmares about insects almost every single night.

—

As for what he was like before then, I can’t help you. I only ever saw him from a distance, you see, striding down the corridors of the Provincial Office.

In 1980, when it happened, he was still only a freshman at university. The hair on his upper lip was little more than a scrubby patch of fluff, and he had these thick, dark lashes that stood out against his pale skin. Every time I saw him he seemed to be in a great hurry, his skinny arms swinging back and forth by his sides.

I know the kinds of things he was busy with, at least: dealing with the wounded, organizing the treatment of the corpses, obtaining coffins and flags, arranging the funeral ceremonies…all that sort of thing.

You know, I really wouldn’t have predicted he’d stay behind on the last night. There were only the hardliners left at that point, and they were mainly workers. Most of the students, on the other hand, had called for the Provincial Office to be evacuated before the army reentered the city, insisting that no more lives be needlessly thrown away. They left their own guns in the lobby and went home to their beds; I would have had Jin-su down for one of them. Even when I saw him there, I had my doubts. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d snuck away before midnight.