June, 1994 – Pyongyang, North Korea
She prepares it with her life. No one who enters this room would make up her mind to kill the god-like man. Many girls who served him would end up to be caged in ersatz luxury giving in what? She can’t imagine what miserable life it would be living a life like a marionette unable to go free. The man she has to face with her life is old, very much old so she doesn’t even consider him a living. And this man is usually unapproachable by all means. She hears doors open and shut softly somewhere in the mansion. The time is up. She moves to stand, but then sits back down. Rain has fallen all day, weeping wind beats against the tightly closed windows. She runs her fingers in the hem of her sleeve as her heart roars with winds. At least she is able to spare a needle from the caretaker and hides it in there. The needle holds the fate of her own and of the man she wants to kill tonight. Either she fails or succeeds it would cost her life. If that were the price for revenge, she would be happy to watch him die. And if it were she who would die first, she would still have no regrets.
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Two days ago in Osaka she was kidnapped by unidentified North Korea men and shipped to Pyongyang blindfolded and her hands bounded on her back. Why are they after me? With fear and frustration she pondered the question in the dark cabin. It was answered when she was brought in one of secret mansions built for Kim Il-Sung deep in Pyongyang. Kim Jung-Il was waiting for her. ‘Something is wrong.’ An angry voice spoke inside of her head while he told the bone-chilling plot against her. She was to offer for Kim Il-Sung’s immortal bed as a Girl Medicine. Waves of shock rippled along her body when she snapped back to her sense realizing what would have become of her. ‘A Girl medicine for the Great Father.’ Kim Jung-Il didn’t speak the words. Rather, he silently mouthed the words.
Kim Jung-Il has been cleaver enough to read old man’s psychology and has built a longevity program hiring endless list of specialties and recruiting thousands young girls to please his father. Recently the tension between father and son rose high and he needed something to take away Kim Il-Sung’s attention for a while. The power wasn’t completely handed down to him. Kim Jung-Il looked up Jin Su with dancing eyes. He was satisfied with the result. More than his expectations she was as charming as an innocent girl of eighteen after four sons bearing. And he knew enough of her family lineage that she would be meant more than a girl with pretty face to his father. He beamed a broad smile at her simply pleased to see a beautiful woman. Su felt so stupid caught with his intense gaze on her. She swallowed her anger and scowled at him. Gently he poured two glasses of expensive liquor and walked toward her. He stopped in front of her and handed a glass. Su took it from his tiny hand. He was small man as she had seen his photos from various newspapers but unexpectedly gentle in his bearing. He made an impression of a gentleman rather than the sex maniac he was referred to sometimes. Slowly he raised his glass in a toast. She drank it up feeling the amber liquid burned going down her throat and spread warmth throughout her body.
It was just before dawn. She was received by a gaunt old woman who studied her from head to toe in stiff silence. The comrade Kang was the caretaker of the mansion and a kinswoman of Kim Il-Sung’s late mother. Her arms folded on her chest she led to the long corridor few steps ahead of Su. The villa on the hillside of Myohyang Mountain was known Kim Il-Sung’s favorite lodging among more than hundred exquisite villas all over North Korea. For better or worse, she could make out nothing of its renowned beauty of architecture with surrounding landscapes. Rain pounded violently and winds roars through the trees in the dark. Her head was howling too from lack of sleep and lingering shock. It hadn’t been a perfect night for driving. Dark gray rains had pelted on the road and winds beat the windows of the Mercedes Benz during the ride. She had tried to peek out the mysterious beauty of the mountain, but all she could see was diagonal sheets of silvery rain smacking the dark window. The car had never slowed down once and moved forward like a fired bullet on the empty road. It had felt almost funny to think a possibility of dying from a car accident. She would consider herself very lucky if she had killed accidently at that moment. Unlucky for her the car had reached at Kim Il-Sung’s villa, safe and sound.
Comrade Kang insisted on finishing her portion of meals at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Su was sick with fear but she swallowed rice from her bowl obediently. After each meal, when the dishes had been cleared away a cup of herbal tea was placed before her and she drank down it without question. It tasted exotic flowers. It ran through her blood warm and her body relaxed in electric drowsiness. It was easy to guess the purpose of druggy teas. It was a sort of aphrodisiac to boost her sexual libido. She grinned bitterly. It felt too foolish to accept that fate has cursed her like this. She just wanted to laugh it out to shake off the bitter taste of it.
Toward evening, her body was searched before changing into an evening dress. A doctor and nurse checked on every inch of her body. If it were possible they would have turned her inside and out. The pink chiffon dress laid on the table was her size. Pink was Kim Il-Sung’s choice of color, the color of azalea. Two young women came to help her to dress, perfuming and powdering not meeting her eyes. Everyone she met in this strange mansion carried his or her roles in silence. She wondered what they would think of her while preparing her as the great father’s sex slave. “You are a very beautiful woman.” One woman spoke in a whispering voice. Su heard jealousy in her voice and it filled her with sadness. Even the young woman’s blinded loyalty toward Kim Il-Sung welled tear in her luminous eyes.
Later that evening the same two women held Su’s arm at each side and walked her to the adjacent inner room. The room was simply decorated and cozy in the same time; every piece of furniture seemed intentionally collected in good taste whoever arranged them. She spotted the huge bed deep inside the room and quickly turned her face away. Simply she couldn’t bear the sight of it. Curtains drawn completely covering windows the room was paused except soft yellow lights playing across the wooden floor. The woman with teary eyes stood at the door and another woman pushed her to an armchair holding her elbow genteelly. As she sat nervously facing a landscape painting on the opposite wall the woman looked at her. She smoothed her dress and tucked her hair back. It was the delicate hands of young girl. So tender on her skin that Su bit her lip stopping herself from begging her to stay longer. Until the door slowly closed behind her she shut her eyes. “Don’t be a coward. If you want to die, first kill him.” She told to herself.
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And there she is, alone in the room to play a game of chance with life. This is I, she thinks, a daughter of Red Communist spy, dressed to kill? A faint smile appears on her pale cheeks. Before she kills the man she has to seduce him with everything she has. She is scared, more scared than she could imagine before. Most of all she is afraid for herself that she couldn’t quiet sure what she’s up to. She has only one chance to kill him using her body with help of the needle she hid away miraculously. Each of her fists lays on the each of her laps, shaking. “Shit.” She curses. She doesn’t like the sound of creepy rain steadily beating against window.
She freezes when she senses a soft sound of approaching footsteps from the other side of the door. She realizes the room has another door besides one she has entered. She stares hard at the beautifully carved wooden door while it opens from the outside. If she thinks to have prepared him, then she hasn’t prepared him at all. She lifts her head to find the towering figure walks over her dressed in his usual labor worker’s uniform. He has a strangely sad smile on his face, but his right hand spreads on his side as if he’s pleased to see her. Behind him the door closed without sound. He walks in slowly. His sagging face droops in sadness and his bloodshot eyes are swollen. And suddenly, something cold recognition grips her chest, her entire life boils down to this moment. She no longer thinks about fear because she dares to loss this once in a life opportunity. She gazes up at him her lips twisted into a slight grin. No one including herself could have expected that this terrifying old man would be fatally killed by a young weaponless woman. She accepts the challenge.
