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Nonfiction

The Arduous March

By Ji Hyun-ah
Translated from Korean by Sora Kim-Russell
Ji Hyun-ah reflects on a childhood of hardship and propaganda in North Korea.

We stayed in the mountain village up until we left the North. Before that, when we had been living in the farming village, we couldn’t afford to visit our relatives in China. But after a few years in our new location, we started applying for temporary passports so we could travel back and forth across the border. With both my father and mother making trips to China, our family seemed to be among the better off in the village.

My father, who traveled frequently to procure materials for the government-run farm where he worked, was a very generous, proper, and considerate man. People used to say he was naturally good at heart. This shows how much people trusted him. If he had any flaw, it was that he loved alcohol and paid little attention to family affairs and took better care of his business and his friends than he did his family.

Then a few years later, starting in the mid-1990s, the era of great famine known as The Arduous March came to North Korea. Anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of people died of starvation due to the country’s economic isolation and the natural disasters of flooding and drought. As in other places, the food shortage in our village reached a critical point. People ate porridge and continued going to work; meanwhile, food rations stopped entirely, and the distribution stations shut their doors. With rations cut off, people began to starve. In spring, everyone would go out to gather frozen potatoes and forage in the mountains for grass roots, tree bark, and wild greens.

I think it is no exaggeration to say that this was when my dream of becoming a musician changed to that of becoming a writer. My father had been a musician, and ever since I was young, he had encouraged me to follow in his footsteps and study music. I, too, had been interested in music, but after The Arduous March was upon us, I was filled with the desire to record everything I saw. I wanted to make the people I saw around me—people so hungry to live that they would forage in the mountains for food!—the heroes of my books.

Everyone struggled, doing whatever they had to do to survive, including engaging in trade that the government had ordered them not to do. My mother kept us going by bringing back rice and other items to sell, with the help of our family in China. Whenever the rice ran out, she would get another temporary passport and go back for more. But since she had little experience with trading, it never occurred to her to make a real business out of it. Our father, on the other hand, knew a great deal about buying and selling from his position as a procurement officer for the government farm, and he scolded our mother constantly for not doing something more with the goods she brought back from China. But since she knew nothing of running a business, my mother had no choice but to quietly tolerate his scolding.

Thanks to our relatives in China, we kept going to school, wore better clothes and shoes than others, and even ate good food. We lived well for several years, but after a while our family also began to fall on hard times. Our relatives in China moved to South Korea to make money, so we lost contact with them. My younger siblings and I did not have enough to eat. Weak from hunger, we could not go to school and had to join others in the mountains to forage for wild greens.

Whenever he was home from a trip, our father would join us in gathering songgi—our mother was unable to, having suffered a bone infection in her leg when she was young. Songgi is the thin inner bark of the pine tree that you get to by peeling away the outer bark with a knife or a scythe. It was really difficult work to collect an entire sackful of it. My two younger siblings would pick wild greens while my father and I worked on the songgi. At home, we blanched the greens in boiling water to make porridge. Then we boiled the songgi in lye for a long time and stretched it out and soaked it in water overnight. When that was done, we beat it with a club and added a handful of corn flour to make a kind of cake called songgi tteok. It was barely edible, and having to make do with that kind of food was terrible, yet it never occurred to us to blame North Korea’s dictatorial government for our hardships, nor did we feel sad about it. That was because of the lectures we attended once a month: 

Our nation, with its many mountains and little arable land, must import rice from other countries. But the boats that bring in rice from abroad are fired upon by the United States, which maintains an economic blockade against us, and all are sacrificed. The United States is the reason we are undergoing this current hardship.

These ideas were drilled into our heads, so we could not help thinking of the US as our sworn enemies.

Because my father was often away on business, the role of head of the household fell to me. When we ran out of firewood, I would go with others from our village into the mountains to chop down trees. The work was profoundly difficult. Young as I was, I was barely able to fell a tree on my own. It took all of the strength I did not have to swing the ax, and more often than not, the tree would land on me, injuring my arm or foot. It was so hard that I often collapsed in the snow and cried. Blowing into my gloveless hands and chopping down trees in the winter with the wind howling past me in my threadbare shoes, I felt miserable and envied the others who had borrowed an ox from the government farm to carry back their firewood. When the people of my village saw me dragging the wood behind me with rope, because it was too heavy for me to carry, they would murmur, “Poor thing!” but they never helped. It was not that I expected them to help, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping just a little that they would.

I was only seventeen at the time, and chopping firewood was so difficult for me that we had no choice but to use it very sparingly. As a result, the house was often damp, which made the fire very smoky. We had to leave the door open whenever we cooked, so we wore thick, padded clothing all the time, even indoors. In North Korea, the houses have heated floors—beneath the top layer of oiled paper, which is glued down with flour or corn paste, a layer of large concrete slabs are spaced apart to create passages for the warm air from the stove to flow through and heat the room. If the fire is not kept going and the room gets damp, the floor paper comes unglued and rolls back, exposing the concrete underneath.

At some point, the smoke started coming out of the stove rather than going out through the chimney, so I had to roll up my sleeves and rip up the floor to repair it myself. But how good a job could a seventeen-year-old girl do all on her own? I had to use a pickax to break through the concrete. My face was covered in soot, and my clothes turned black from digging up the large slabs with my short arms. The smoke had been unable to escape through the chimney because the channels between the slabs were packed with soot. I had to remove all of it. That required me to lift each of the slabs and clear out the soot, but I was too weak. Instead, I tied a rag to a long piece of chain, stuffed the chain between the slabs, and dragged the soot toward me so I could dig it out with a trowel. This was only possible while lying on my stomach, so it was extremely tiring work. To finish the floor, I had to replace the slabs and pack them in place with clay: this meant mixing the clay in cold water and packing it between the stones with my bare hands in the dead of winter. Without gloves, and so young, I could barely do this. My mother could not do anything, and my siblings were too young, so I had to struggle on my own.

If I had been just a little bit older, I could have found a job or some other means of helping my family, and things would not have been that difficult. But because I was at an age where I was supposed to be under the protective wings of my mother and father, it was my duty to look after my siblings and care for my ailing mother. The weight on my shoulders grew heavier with each day.

From that point on, our family slipped further and further into poverty. My father was practically living in another province because of his work, and in the spring he had to go to Eundeok County to procure fertilizer for the farm. The fertilizer problem was nearly solved, but the impoverished farm could not afford to front my father the money for the trade. He said that was no reason to give up, and so he sold our own belongings, including a recorder, a sewing machine, and the TV, and when that was not enough, he even borrowed money from a wealthier family. After doing so, he was able to get the fertilizer to the farm by freight train. Compared to the farms that had no fertilizer, his was unaffected that year, but as poor as we were, everything we owned wound up going into the farm. With nowhere else to turn, my father applied for another temporary passport and went to China. Fortunately, his sister had returned from South Korea, and he returned with a great many things from there. We were able to escape our troubles for a short time, but my father’s debts meant that it did not last.

When the loan sharks heard that my father was back from China, they came to the house every day. And each time, my father handed them money. But the interest was greater than the money he had borrowed in the first place, which meant he was still a long way off from settling his debts. My father tried to get reimbursed for the money he had put into the farm, but the manager refused to budge.

Finally, my father seemed to have a change of heart. “At this rate,” he said, “our family will never survive!” I think he’d seen signs that the North Korean regime was collapsing. He realized that the government was treating its people like slaves while the citizens of Pyongyang alone enjoyed prosperity. For the sake of three million Pyongyang residents, the government condemned the remaining twenty million citizens to lives of hardship as little more than slaves.

One evening, my father announced that we were going to China. My mother and my siblings and I were all surprised, of course. We asked him why on earth he wanted to leave, and he said that if we continued the way we were going, we would starve to death, and that soon enough the loan sharks would be back, and the farm didn’t give a damn about him.

He told us that when he was in China, he had heard radio broadcasts from South Korea and learned that people in the South were living well, which was contrary to everything we believed. We had always thought that South Korea was full of beggars, but he said it was not like that at all. I could not understand him and refused to go.

That was when the shadow of hardship truly began to fall over our family.

© Ji Hyun-ah. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2013 by Sora Kim-Russell. All rights reserved.

English Korean (Original)

We stayed in the mountain village up until we left the North. Before that, when we had been living in the farming village, we couldn’t afford to visit our relatives in China. But after a few years in our new location, we started applying for temporary passports so we could travel back and forth across the border. With both my father and mother making trips to China, our family seemed to be among the better off in the village.

My father, who traveled frequently to procure materials for the government-run farm where he worked, was a very generous, proper, and considerate man. People used to say he was naturally good at heart. This shows how much people trusted him. If he had any flaw, it was that he loved alcohol and paid little attention to family affairs and took better care of his business and his friends than he did his family.

Then a few years later, starting in the mid-1990s, the era of great famine known as The Arduous March came to North Korea. Anywhere from hundreds of thousands to millions of people died of starvation due to the country’s economic isolation and the natural disasters of flooding and drought. As in other places, the food shortage in our village reached a critical point. People ate porridge and continued going to work; meanwhile, food rations stopped entirely, and the distribution stations shut their doors. With rations cut off, people began to starve. In spring, everyone would go out to gather frozen potatoes and forage in the mountains for grass roots, tree bark, and wild greens.

I think it is no exaggeration to say that this was when my dream of becoming a musician changed to that of becoming a writer. My father had been a musician, and ever since I was young, he had encouraged me to follow in his footsteps and study music. I, too, had been interested in music, but after The Arduous March was upon us, I was filled with the desire to record everything I saw. I wanted to make the people I saw around me—people so hungry to live that they would forage in the mountains for food!—the heroes of my books.

Everyone struggled, doing whatever they had to do to survive, including engaging in trade that the government had ordered them not to do. My mother kept us going by bringing back rice and other items to sell, with the help of our family in China. Whenever the rice ran out, she would get another temporary passport and go back for more. But since she had little experience with trading, it never occurred to her to make a real business out of it. Our father, on the other hand, knew a great deal about buying and selling from his position as a procurement officer for the government farm, and he scolded our mother constantly for not doing something more with the goods she brought back from China. But since she knew nothing of running a business, my mother had no choice but to quietly tolerate his scolding.

Thanks to our relatives in China, we kept going to school, wore better clothes and shoes than others, and even ate good food. We lived well for several years, but after a while our family also began to fall on hard times. Our relatives in China moved to South Korea to make money, so we lost contact with them. My younger siblings and I did not have enough to eat. Weak from hunger, we could not go to school and had to join others in the mountains to forage for wild greens.

Whenever he was home from a trip, our father would join us in gathering songgi—our mother was unable to, having suffered a bone infection in her leg when she was young. Songgi is the thin inner bark of the pine tree that you get to by peeling away the outer bark with a knife or a scythe. It was really difficult work to collect an entire sackful of it. My two younger siblings would pick wild greens while my father and I worked on the songgi. At home, we blanched the greens in boiling water to make porridge. Then we boiled the songgi in lye for a long time and stretched it out and soaked it in water overnight. When that was done, we beat it with a club and added a handful of corn flour to make a kind of cake called songgi tteok. It was barely edible, and having to make do with that kind of food was terrible, yet it never occurred to us to blame North Korea’s dictatorial government for our hardships, nor did we feel sad about it. That was because of the lectures we attended once a month: 

Our nation, with its many mountains and little arable land, must import rice from other countries. But the boats that bring in rice from abroad are fired upon by the United States, which maintains an economic blockade against us, and all are sacrificed. The United States is the reason we are undergoing this current hardship.

These ideas were drilled into our heads, so we could not help thinking of the US as our sworn enemies.

Because my father was often away on business, the role of head of the household fell to me. When we ran out of firewood, I would go with others from our village into the mountains to chop down trees. The work was profoundly difficult. Young as I was, I was barely able to fell a tree on my own. It took all of the strength I did not have to swing the ax, and more often than not, the tree would land on me, injuring my arm or foot. It was so hard that I often collapsed in the snow and cried. Blowing into my gloveless hands and chopping down trees in the winter with the wind howling past me in my threadbare shoes, I felt miserable and envied the others who had borrowed an ox from the government farm to carry back their firewood. When the people of my village saw me dragging the wood behind me with rope, because it was too heavy for me to carry, they would murmur, “Poor thing!” but they never helped. It was not that I expected them to help, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping just a little that they would.

I was only seventeen at the time, and chopping firewood was so difficult for me that we had no choice but to use it very sparingly. As a result, the house was often damp, which made the fire very smoky. We had to leave the door open whenever we cooked, so we wore thick, padded clothing all the time, even indoors. In North Korea, the houses have heated floors—beneath the top layer of oiled paper, which is glued down with flour or corn paste, a layer of large concrete slabs are spaced apart to create passages for the warm air from the stove to flow through and heat the room. If the fire is not kept going and the room gets damp, the floor paper comes unglued and rolls back, exposing the concrete underneath.

At some point, the smoke started coming out of the stove rather than going out through the chimney, so I had to roll up my sleeves and rip up the floor to repair it myself. But how good a job could a seventeen-year-old girl do all on her own? I had to use a pickax to break through the concrete. My face was covered in soot, and my clothes turned black from digging up the large slabs with my short arms. The smoke had been unable to escape through the chimney because the channels between the slabs were packed with soot. I had to remove all of it. That required me to lift each of the slabs and clear out the soot, but I was too weak. Instead, I tied a rag to a long piece of chain, stuffed the chain between the slabs, and dragged the soot toward me so I could dig it out with a trowel. This was only possible while lying on my stomach, so it was extremely tiring work. To finish the floor, I had to replace the slabs and pack them in place with clay: this meant mixing the clay in cold water and packing it between the stones with my bare hands in the dead of winter. Without gloves, and so young, I could barely do this. My mother could not do anything, and my siblings were too young, so I had to struggle on my own.

If I had been just a little bit older, I could have found a job or some other means of helping my family, and things would not have been that difficult. But because I was at an age where I was supposed to be under the protective wings of my mother and father, it was my duty to look after my siblings and care for my ailing mother. The weight on my shoulders grew heavier with each day.

From that point on, our family slipped further and further into poverty. My father was practically living in another province because of his work, and in the spring he had to go to Eundeok County to procure fertilizer for the farm. The fertilizer problem was nearly solved, but the impoverished farm could not afford to front my father the money for the trade. He said that was no reason to give up, and so he sold our own belongings, including a recorder, a sewing machine, and the TV, and when that was not enough, he even borrowed money from a wealthier family. After doing so, he was able to get the fertilizer to the farm by freight train. Compared to the farms that had no fertilizer, his was unaffected that year, but as poor as we were, everything we owned wound up going into the farm. With nowhere else to turn, my father applied for another temporary passport and went to China. Fortunately, his sister had returned from South Korea, and he returned with a great many things from there. We were able to escape our troubles for a short time, but my father’s debts meant that it did not last.

When the loan sharks heard that my father was back from China, they came to the house every day. And each time, my father handed them money. But the interest was greater than the money he had borrowed in the first place, which meant he was still a long way off from settling his debts. My father tried to get reimbursed for the money he had put into the farm, but the manager refused to budge.

Finally, my father seemed to have a change of heart. “At this rate,” he said, “our family will never survive!” I think he’d seen signs that the North Korean regime was collapsing. He realized that the government was treating its people like slaves while the citizens of Pyongyang alone enjoyed prosperity. For the sake of three million Pyongyang residents, the government condemned the remaining twenty million citizens to lives of hardship as little more than slaves.

One evening, my father announced that we were going to China. My mother and my siblings and I were all surprised, of course. We asked him why on earth he wanted to leave, and he said that if we continued the way we were going, we would starve to death, and that soon enough the loan sharks would be back, and the farm didn’t give a damn about him.

He told us that when he was in China, he had heard radio broadcasts from South Korea and learned that people in the South were living well, which was contrary to everything we believed. We had always thought that South Korea was full of beggars, but he said it was not like that at all. I could not understand him and refused to go.

That was when the shadow of hardship truly began to fall over our family.

© Ji Hyun-ah. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2013 by Sora Kim-Russell. All rights reserved.

고난의 행군

우리 가족은 탈북 할 때까지 그곳에서 살았다. 그렇게 몇 년을 살다가 우리는 임시 여권을 떼서 중국의 친척 집에 다니기 시작했다. 그렇게 할 수 있을 만큼 여유 있는 시간이 된 것이었다. 아버지도 다녀오고 또 어머니도 다녀오는 등 우리 집은 그 산골에서 잘 사는 계급에 속한 것만 같았다.

자재지도원이라는 직책으로 출장을 많이 다니던 아버지는 워낙 마음이 어질고 고지식하며 자상한 분이었다. 그래서 사람들은 아버지를 법 없이도 살 사람이라고 했다. 그만큼 아버진 사람들에게서 신용을 얻은 분이었기 때문이며 흠이라면 술을 좋아해서 가정보다는 기업소나 친구들에게 더 잘하고 가정 일에는 관심을 덜 쓰는 점이라 할 수 있었다.

그렇게 몇 년이 지난 1990년대 중반부터 북한에는 “고난의 행군”이라는 대기근의 시기가 닥쳐왔다. 국제적 고립과 홍수와 가뭄의 자연재해로 수십만에서 수백만에 이르는 아사자가 발생했다.

다른 곳과 마찬가지로 우리 마을도 식량난이 절정에 이르렀다. 사람들은 죽을 먹으며 직장에 출근했고 배급이라곤 아예 주지 않았으며 배급소조차 문을 굳게 닫은 상태였다. 배급이 끊기면서 굶어 죽는 사람이 속출했다. 모두들 봄이 되면 언 감자를 주우러 다녔고 풀뿌리와 나무껍질, 나물을 캐러 산속을 누볐는데 나의 꿈이 음악가에서 문학가로 다시 바뀐 것이 이때부터였다고 해도 과언이 아닐 듯 싶다.

음악가였던 아버지는 내가 어릴 때부터 자신의 뒤를 이어 음악을 전공하라고 가르쳤고 나 스스로도 음악에 조금은 관심을 가져 왔는데 “고난의 행군”이 달려들면서부터 보이는 모든 현실을 기록하고 싶은 욕구가 생겼다. 산을 누비고 다니면서까지 살고 싶어 하는 사람들! 이 사람들을 책 속의 주인공으로 실어주고 싶었다.

사람들은 정부에서 하지 말라는 장사까지 해가며 살기 위해 온 힘을 다해 발버둥 쳤다. 어머니는 중국에서 도움을 받아 물건이나 쌀을 가지고 오면 그것을 팔아 생활을 했고 쌀이 없으면 또 여권을 떼어 중국에 가서 쌀을 가지고 오곤 했는데 그때까지 장사를 해 본 적이 없었던 어머니는 그걸 팔아서 장사를 해야겠다는 생각을 전혀 하지 않았다.

반면 자재지도원으로 일하면서 직장의 물자들을 거래하는 일들을 했기에 장사를 너무도 잘 알았던 아버지는 장사를 못하는 그런 어머니를 항상 나무랬다. 하지만 장사를 할 줄 모르는 어머니로서는 아버지의 그 나무람을 그저 참고 들어줄 뿐 달리 방법이 없었다. 

중국의 친척들 덕분에 우리는 남들보다 옷도 잘 입고, 신발도 좋은 걸로 신고 다녔으며 학교에 다니고 먹는 것도 고급이었다. 몇 년을 그렇게 잘 살았지만, 우리 집에도 서서히 생활난이 시작되었다. 

중국에 계시는 친척들이 다들 한국으로 돈 벌러 가버려서 중국에 가도 친척들을 만날 수가 없었다. 나와 여동생 명순, 남동생 명국 이렇게 셋은 먹지 못해 배고프고 기운이 없어 학교에도 가지 못하고 남들이 하는 것처럼 산나물을 뜯으러 산에 올랐다.

어릴 때부터 다리에 골수염이 있던 어머니는 아무 일도 못했으며 아버지도 출장에서 돌아오면 우리와 함께 소나무 껍질인 송기를 벗기러 다녔다. 송기란 소나무 겉껍질을 낫 아니면 칼로 한번 벗겨 낸 그 속에 있는 얇은 껍질을 말한다. 그걸 한 배낭씩 한다는 것은 정말 쉽지 않은 일이었다. 두 동생들은 산나물을 뜯고, 나와 아버지는 낫과 칼을 들고 산으로 올라가 송기를 벗기고 집으로 와서는 산나물은 끓는 물에 데쳐 내서는 죽을 쑤었다. 

송기는 가마에 양잿물을 넣고 오래도록 끓인 후 물에 하루 동안 펴서 재워놓고 다시 방망이로 두드려서는 옥수수 가루 한 줌을 넣고 떡을 만든다.

당시 그 송기떡이 목에 넘어가지를 않아서 정말 속상했었는데 그렇게 못사는 것이 북한의 독재 정권 때문이라고는 전혀 생각하지 못했고 서럽지도 않았다. 왜냐하면 한 달에 한 번씩 강연회를 하는데 그때마다 하는 강의 내용은 이러했기 때문이다.

 

산이 많고 논과 밭이 적은 우리나라는 다른 나라에서 쌀을 수입해 와야 한다. 하지만 수입하는 도중 쌀을 실은 배를 경제봉쇄 하는 미국에서 총질을 해 다들 희생된다. 그래서 우리가 지금 미국 때문에 이렇게 생활난을 겪는단다.

 

이와 같은 사상이 머릿속을 지배하고 있었기 때문에 미국을 우리의 철천지원수로 생각할 수밖에 없었다.

아버지가 기업소의 일 때문에 출장으로 집을 비우는 일이 많다 보니 그 가장의 자리를 내가 메워야만 했다. 땔 장작이 없으면 다른 사람들이 기업소 소를 빌려서 나무를 하러 갈 때 나도 따라가 산에 올라가서 나무를 해왔는데 정말이지 매우 힘들었다. 나무를 톱으로 벤다는 게 어린 나에게는 힘에 부치는 일이 아닐 수 없었다. 없는 힘을 다해서 나무를 베면 그 나무가 내게로 넘어와 팔이나 발을 다치기 일쑤였고 너무도 힘들어서 쌓인 눈 위에 철퍼덕 앉아 울 때도 많았다. 닳아진 신발을 신고 장갑도 없이 바람이 쌩쌩 부는 겨울에 손을 호호 불며 나무를 베는 내가 미웠고 소로 나무를 해오는 동네아저씨들이 부러웠다. 나무가 무거워 힘에 부치니 밧줄로 질질 끌고 오면 동네 사람들은 ‘너, 힘들겠다….’하고 말만 할 뿐 도와주지는 않았다. 도움을 바란 건 아니지만 약간의 기대감을 가졌던 것도 사실이었다.

당시 내 나이 17살, 나무하기가 그처럼 힘든 만큼 나무를 아끼려 불을 조금씩 땔 수밖에 없다 보니 방바닥에 습기가 많아 불을 땔 적마다 연기가 나서 문을 항상 열어놓고 밥을 해야 했으므로 방안에서도 솜옷을 입을 수밖에 없었다. 북한에서는 온돌을 놓고 시멘트로 바르고 그 위에 장판지를 밀가루 아니면 옥수수 가루로 쑨 풀로 발랐는데 불을 때지 않아 습기가 많아지면 방바닥에 바른 장판지가 모두 들뜨고 일어나 시멘트를 바른 방바닥이 드러났다.

연기가 굴뚝으로 나가지 않고 아궁이로 나왔기 때문에 직접 팔을 걷어붙이고 방바닥을 뜯어서 온돌 수리를 했는데 17살 소녀가 온돌수리를 한다고 해야 얼마나 잘하랴! 방바닥을 뜯어내려니 곡괭이질을 해야 했고 얼굴에 온통 숯검댕이를 묻히고 짧은 팔로 큰 돌 사이를 헤집으니 옷도 숯검댕이가 되어 버렸다. 굴뚝으로는 연기가 나가지 못하는 이유는 방바닥의 온돌과 온돌 사이에 그을음이 꽉 차있었기 때문이었는데 이것을 다 꺼내야만 했다. 그래서 온돌에 놓인 돌들을 들어내고 그을음을 꺼내야 하지만 힘이 없는 나로서는 그렇게 할 수가 없어서 긴 쇠줄에 헝겊을 동여매고는 그것을 온돌 사이에 쑤셔 넣은 다음 그을음을 앞으로 당겨서 작은 삽으로 퍼냈는데 엎드린 자세에서만 이 작업이 가능했으니 여간 힘들지 않았다. 마무리로 뜯어낸 온돌을 다시 메우는 작업은 진흙으로 해야 했는데 엄동설한에 장갑도 없이 맨손으로 찬물에 진흙을 이겨 온돌 사이를 메우는 것이 당시 어린 나에게는 너무도 힘에 부치는 일이었다. 어머니는 아무것도 못하시지, 동생들은 어리지, 정말 나 혼자서 너무도 힘들었다.

조금만 성숙한 나이였으면 그렇게까지 힘들지 않았을 텐데. 아직 엄마, 아빠의 그늘 아래 부모가 해주는 데로 생활해야 할 나이에 동생들을 챙기고 아프신 어머니를 돌봐야 하는 것이 나의 임무였고 내 어깨에는 점점 무거운 짐들이 쌓여만 갔다.

그때부터 우리 집은 점점 가난에 쪼들리게 되었는데 아버지는 기업소 일 때문에 지방에서 거의 살다시피 했으며 봄이 되면 기업소의 비료 때문에 은덕군으로 가야만 했다. 비료 문제는 거의 해결되었지만 가난한 기업소에서는 거래 돈을 아버지에게 주지 못했다. 아버지는 그렇다고 그 일을 포기할 수는 없었으므로 집에 있던 녹음기며, 재봉기며 TV 등을 팔았고 그것도 모자라 잘사는 집에서 돈을 빌리기까지 했다. 그리하여 비료는 기차방통으로 기업소에 들어왔었고 비료 없어 헤매는 농장에 비해 기업소는 그해 농사 비료는 끄떡없게 되었지만, 결국 집의 살림은 쪼들리는데도 집의 재산을 기업소에 바친 셈이 된 것이었다. 더 이상 방법이 없었는지 아버지는 다시 여권을 떼어 중국으로 갔다. 중국에 사는 고모가 한국에 갔다가 돌아온 덕분에 아버지는 그곳에서 이것저것 많은 것을 가지고 오셨다. 그것으로 한동안은 어려운 생활에서 벗어날 수는 있었지만, 아버지가 빌린 돈 때문에 그 생활도 얼마 가지 못했다.

빚 꾼들은 아버지가 중국에 다녀왔다는 말을 듣고 매일 찾아왔고 그때마다 아버지는 돈을 내주었다. 하지만 이자가 불어서 빌린 돈보다 더 많았기 때문에 그 이자만 갚는다 해도 아득한 일이었다. 아버지가 기업소에 찾아가 돈을 요구해 보았지만, 지배인이라는 사람은 끄떡도 하지 않았다.

 

아버지가 드디어 생각을 고친 모양이었다. ‘이렇게 하다가는 가족이 살아남지 못하겠구나!’하고 말이다. 북한 체재의 와해 조짐을 본 것 같았다. 북한 정권이 주민들을 노예로 담보 잡아 평양 주민들만 영화를 누리고 있다는 사실을 깨달은 것 같았다. 북한 정권은 평양 주민 3백만 명을 살리기 위해서 나머지 2천만 명에게 노예나 다름없는 고된 생활을 시키고 있다.

어느 날 저녁 아버지는 식구들에게 중국으로 가자는 놀라운 말을 했다. 나는 물론 어머니와 두 동생들도 깜짝 놀랐다. 웬일로 중국으로 가려느냐고 묻자 아버지는 여기에서 이렇게 해서는 앉아서 굶어 죽는다며 하루가 멀다 하게 빚 꾼들이 오고 기업소에서는 나 몰라라 하는데 어떻게 살겠느냐고 했다.

중국에 가서 한국 방송을 들었는데 우리가 알고 있는 것과는 달리 남조선은 잘살고 있다고 했다. 우리의 생각에 남조선에는 거지만 있는 줄 알았는데 완전히 다르다고 말했다. 그런 아버지의 말이 이해가 되지 않았던 나는 못 간다고 했다. 

우리 가족의 고난의 그림자가 드디어 드리워지기 시작했다.

 

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