Fighting Pax. Robin Jarvis

Shark, vile devil though he was, wasn’t responsible once the book got hold of him. If you start thinking the Jaxers are anything but victims then what does that make you? Think of Carol and Paul: they’re innocent too.”

      Martin Baxter said nothing. He was sick to the stomach by what had just happened, but there was something more. Gerald’s words had touched upon a very raw nerve and he couldn’t think about it right now.

      Back in the meeting room, the Chief of the General Staff had just taken a phone call. The entire meeting had been transmitted via webcam to the palace in Pyongyang. The order from the Supreme Leader was very plain.

      “Tell Doctor Choe Soo-jin the restriction is lifted – with immediate effect.”

       4

      LEE WAS IN the refectory that also served as the refugees’ common room. He was sitting at one of the long tables, with his feet up. The four guards he was chained to stood stiffly either side. It was the Spice Girls, four young men in their early twenties. They had taken over from the Sex and the City quartet under an hour ago.

      Many of the other children were there, because their dorms were small and cell-like and unheated. Here there was a wood-burning stove, but the logs were rationed and their daily allocation lasted only about four hours.

      The children were wrapped in rough blankets or oversized military greatcoats. Having escaped from the prison camp in England with nothing but the rags they had on, they now wore clothing generously donated by the People’s Army and looked like the destitute outcasts that they were. Most days they sat, clumped together in small groups, either playing the Korean board games also given to them by the military or whispering among themselves.

      Maggie was a dab hand with a needle and thread, so Gerald miraculously scrounged the rudiments of a basic sewing kit for her, including a small pair of scissors. She happily filled her hours adapting the cast-off uniforms, cutting them down for a snugger fit or turning them into completely different garments. Spencer’s Stetson had been confiscated as being too strong a symbol of the US, so she had made him a cowboy-style waistcoat with a star on it like a sheriff’s badge to compensate.

      She paid special attention to the group of girls who had been in Charm’s hut back in the camp. Her late friend had asked her to look out for them so she made sure their requests were dealt with first. Western dress was forbidden in North Korea so the guards raised their eyebrows at the home-made fashions. It was the closest Maggie ever got to making them smile. With the remnants, she created small dolls and animals, initially to keep herself occupied in between alterations and to put around the dorm and refectory to cheer the place up. But they turned out so well every girl wanted one, except Esther who said they were “fugly”.

      That afternoon Maggie sat across from Lee, stitching eyes on to a bear with coloured thread. It was a gift for little Nabi, who spent as much time as she could in the company of the English aberrants. Maggie found it hard to believe she was Eun-mi’s sister. The two were poles apart. Six-year-old Nabi was a lively, excitable, curious child whose laughter could be heard ricocheting down the long, bleak corridors. Her raven hair was tied in bunches and her face was almost always scrunched up in a toothy grin that swallowed her almond eyes. She was nearly too cute at times and Maggie jokingly suggested Nabi had slid off one of the chocolate-boxy propaganda posters.

      The six-year-old was besotted with Lee. He was something new and amazing to her. Black people were extremely rare in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, usually embassy staff and diplomats who lived separately in gated communities. They had all been ejected from the country many months ago, so she had never seen anyone like him before. For the first few weeks she’d followed him around with an open mouth and bulging eyes. When he touched something, like a door, or set a cup down, she would pounce and inspect it to see if his colour came off. To begin with he yelled and roared at her and she would run and hide like a terrified hamster. But, eventually, she would come stealing back for more and gaze at him with those bright, worshipping eyes.

      Even though he was still numb with grief and raging against his chains, Lee found it impossible to take his anger out on Nabi. He knew exactly what Charm would do if she was still alive. She would have befriended and loved the child and so he tolerated her.

      That morning she was sitting next to Maggie, watching the bear take shape and insisting it look fiercer by making savage faces and growling. Her English consisted of the few words and nursery rhymes Gerald had taught her and several other pieces of choice language that she had picked up from Lee, which always scandalised her sister, if her vocabulary stretched that far. Then there was that infamous occasion when Nabi had squealed, tunelessly, in front of their father, “I see you, baby, shakin’ that ass, shakin’ that ass.” For three weeks after that she was forbidden to visit the refugees, but had finally managed to bring the General around, as she always did.

      Outside the refectory, in the long, gloomy corridor painted a bilious green that was blistered and peeling, Spencer waited for Martin and Gerald to return. There was nothing else to do; besides, he liked being on his own. In this place there was little privacy. The dorms were smaller and more cramped than the huts in the camp had been and the toilet facilities were basic and communal.

      He scuffed the worn heel of his shabby shoes across the concrete floor and the sound went echoing eerily up and down. Five small dorms, the refectory, the shared bathroom, the stone steps to the terrace and Lee’s hospital room were accessed by this broad yet claustrophobic passage. Further on it turned a sharp right corner into the prohibited area with the mysterious doors they weren’t allowed to enter.

      Spencer glanced towards that corner and squinted at the armed soldier standing rigidly still there. It was impossible to be alone anywhere here. If it wasn’t the guards, it was the other children, or visits from that overzealous, pushy doctor wanting to do more tests. The boy craved a bit of solitude. He yearned for the desolate stretches of sand dunes in his home town of Southport and missed the lonely walks he used to take there out of season, when he could roam all day and not meet another soul. Everything about this place was so oppressive, at times it made him breathless. It wasn’t just the joyless regime and the fear of what lay ahead, but the mountain itself. He tried not to think about the millions of tonnes of rock that surrounded him, but was constantly aware of them and could almost feel them pressing down.

      He would often lie awake in his bunk, listening to the distant noises of the base and the eerie sound of the air coursing through the vents and tunnels. If the main entrance was open, and the wind came squalling in, it howled through the connecting passageways. When other unknown and distant doors were unbolted, it could be like the whispering of ghosts. Spencer wondered how frequent earth tremors were in this part of the world. One slight judder would be cataclysmic and the mountain would come crushing down. When he did sleep, it was fitful and shallow and the faintest creak or scratching of mice caused him to lurch awake.

      Unlike the other refugees, he didn’t call this place Titipu. Instead he preferred ‘the Hole-in-the-Wall’ after the Wild West hideout of outlaws. But that didn’t help much. Passing a hand over his bare head, he tried to suppress the anxiety he could feel rising in his chest. The loss of his Stetson had been like a kick in the gut. It was his comfort object and he felt bereft without it. In the camp, when the Punchinello with the silver nose had swiped it from him, at least Spencer knew where it was. These people had probably burned it and that likelihood distressed him deeply. Maggie had been extremely sympathetic, but the waistcoat she had made was no substitute for his beloved hat, although he secretly liked it when Lee called him “Sheriff Woody”.

      Spencer turned his unhappy face to the other end of the corridor, where it opened out on to one of the main tunnels. Digging his cold hands into his pockets, he leaned against the rocky wall and waited.

      “It really Christmas already?” Lee asked, back in the refectory.

      “At the end of the week,” Maggie answered. She had been telling him Gerald’s plans for the choir.