Hero Kang’s masseuse wore only a coarse white towel pinned around her shapely body and a smaller towel piled atop her head like an ancient Egyptian headdress. My attendant wore a stiff cotton medical smock buttoned meticulously to the top of her neck.
I wanted to ask Hero Kang why we were being treated differently, but I didn’t want these women, or anyone in this massive gymnasium, to know I spoke Korean. Besides, I thought I knew the answer. Hero Kang was a revered hero of the people. I, on the other hand, was something putrid, to be cleansed and purified. In short, I was a foreigner. In North Korea, even those foreigners who were political allies, such as an officer of the Warsaw Pact, were considered objectionable, not of the “pure race” and, in most people’s eyes, less than human.
We’d been fed earlier with expensive white rice, not the coarse brown rice or thick-fibered corn most North Koreans ate, and with savory side dishes: cabbage kimchi, diced turnip, pickled cucumber, and bulkogi, grilled slices of marinated beef. Now I was being washed. All of this pampering, I thought, was simply preparing me for the kill.
Hero Kang moaned in pleasure as his masseuse dug her pudgy fingers into the muscles at the base of his neck. My attendant dropped her sponge in a bucket and slipped on a glove of coarse, wiry cloth. Pointing, she ordered me to lie down on the stone. I did. She slapped soapy water on my back and then, with a vengeance, began to scrub. I winced in pain and started to rise, but she shoved me back down with her free hand. She was surprisingly strong. I could’ve thrown her off, but I decided that I was man enough to take it. I lay back down, clenched my teeth, and vowed not to show weakness.
I’d seen gloves like this one in South Korea. They were designed to clean the skin so thoroughly that they scraped off the first layer of flesh and sometimes the second and third. Dirt and oil built up in the pores appears like magic atop the reddened skin in black, rubbery pellets, which the Koreans call ddei. The woman scrubbed and scrubbed and whole handfuls of ddei appeared. “Toryowoyo,” she said. Dirty.
“Yangnom da kurei,” the masseuse replied. All foreign louts are the same.
Hero Kang laughed, his massive back shaking. “How do you know?” he asked them. “How many foreign louts have you scrubbed?”
The masseuse didn’t answer. Instead, she slapped him playfully on the butt, her face reddening at her own boldness.
Grimly, my female torturer ordered me to roll over. I obeyed. When she finally ordered me to stand up, my entire body was as red and as raw as a lobster without its shell. Holding my arms away from my body so as not to irritate the inflamed flesh, I hobbled over to the huge tub filled with steaming water that she was pointing to. When I’d lowered myself to my shoulders, she grabbed the top of my head and shoved me under. I came up sputtering.
After soaking for less than a minute, she ordered me out of the tub and handed me towels. As I dried off, I thought of what Hero Kang had told me. My life and Doc Yong’s depended on me finding the information that would protect the Manchurian Battalion. As did the life of the new person I’d only just learned about. He was already trying to walk and talk. Maybe maternal pride made Doc Yong exaggerate a little, but I didn’t think so.
I was right about being prepared for slaughter.
I stood in my dobok, my pure white uniform, in the center of the massive gymnasium. Bleachers filled with North Korean Army soldiers lined both walls, males on one side, females on the other. Behind a low row of skirted tables sat stern middle-aged men. The judges.
The other participants were foreigners, like me. Sixteen of us, from countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa. Countries that were all, in one way or another, affiliated with the Communist Bloc. We were ordered in English to line up and then to bow to the judges. They nodded back.
Then we turned and faced a huge bronze statue of Kim Il-sung at the far end of the gymnasium. His face beamed, and with his left hand he was pointing to some sort of Marxist paradise. Little girls dressed in traditional chima-chogori Korean dresses scurried forward and handed each of us a bouquet of roses. Where they found roses this time of year, I didn’t know. We were ordered to march forward in unison. Cameras were pointed at us and it became apparent that this was a propaganda exercise. When we stood about twenty feet in front of the statue, we were ordered to kneel and lower our heads to the floor. One by one, we were made to rise and lay our roses at the feet of the huge statue. In the background, a voice droned on through rusty speakers about how people from all over the world prostrated themselves in front of the Great Leader in gratitude for spreading his shining light for all to see.
None of the participants complained. Hero Kang had told me that most of them were the family members or employees of various foreign embassies and consulates here in Pyongyang. However, the government’s official line was that we were all Taekwondo enthusiasts who had traveled at great expense to bask in the glow of Korean martial arts and, most importantly, in the shining sun of the people, Kim Il-sung.
Personally, I wanted to throw up.
Hero Kang had registered me as one Captain Enescu from the Warsaw Pact country of Romania. Although they’d devised a phony passport for me, Hero Kang hadn’t had to show it; instead, he’d been able to utilize the power of his personality to overwhelm tournament officials.
After the ceremony, we were allowed to return to our trainers, who stood on the sidelines of the central wood-slat floor. Hero Kang, my trainer, slapped me on the back.
A whistle was blown. The first two combatants trotted out onto the floor, faced the judges and bowed, and then faced each other and bowed again. The order “Junbi” was given. Prepare. And finally, “Sijak.” Begin. The two men started bouncing around each other, fists raised. One of them shot out a side kick. It missed. The other countered with a roundhouse, which also missed.
I glanced at Hero Kang and raised my eyebrows.
“Kisul-ee potong an imnida,” he said. Their skills are remarkable.
It was a joke. He’d told me earlier that many of the contestants were chosen just to fill slots in this supposed final round of the tournament and make it look as if there were a huge international throng here in Pyongyang to study Taekwondo. Some of the combatants, however, would be tough. They were security people who kept themselves in good shape, and, according to Hero Kang, some of them had taken up Taekwondo with true dedication.
In Seoul, I had earned a black belt studying part-time when my work schedule allowed. In the secret dochang Hero Kang had taken me to yesterday, the martial artists had coached me on tournament technique, the best way to score points and impress the judges who would be deciding the winners here today.
I glanced around. The men throwing practice kicks on the sidelines showed various levels of skill, but one of them, a tall black man, sliced the air with some serious punches and kicks.
“Maputo,” Hero Kang told me, “from the Mozambique freedom fighters. He won last year.”
“Only among the foreigners?”
“Of course. Against Koreans, he wouldn’t stand a chance.”
And I knew this was true. Every child in North Korea studies Taekwondo from the time they start school. Those with potential are pulled out and sent to study at special schools for athletes. Once they’re in the military, highly skilled young men face enormous competition to land on the top military teams. If they make it, their only duty is to train and participate in martial arts competitions throughout the Communist world.
On the far side of the gymnasium, the People’s Army First Corps Taekwondo team was limbering up. They would be giving a demonstration after the foreign competition was completed.
The two men fighting now completed their third round, bowed to each other, and-breathing heavily, fists hanging to their sides-awaited the decision of the judges. The judges conferred, the combatants bowed once again, and the winner was announced. Another whistle was blown and two more men took the floor.
Here was the catch about this plan. I had to win the tournament. Not merely do well and come in second or third place, but win. Take the brass ring. If I didn’t, Hero Kang told me, I’d never be invited into the inner sanctum presided over by the political advisor to the commander of the First Corps, the army unit that guarded all access routes to the capital city of Pyongyang. And if I didn’t reach that inner sanctum, I’d never make contact with the person the Manchurian Battalion had embedded in the upper echelons of the North Korean Communist elite, the person who had the information Hero Kang needed. This is why Hero Kang needed a foreigner. If I didn’t win this Taekwondo tournament, our best chance of escape would fall apart.
In North Korea, as I was learning, nothing was ever easy.
My first fight was with a Cuban security guard. He was quite good, but he made a few fundamental mistakes,
