"The Beloved Daughter" Excerpt: Last Image

     Inspectors broke into our cabin in the middle of the night.

     “Get up!” a raspy voice demanded as the door crashed in. Snow blew all the way to my bedside. Partially blinded by the flashlights, I wrapped myself more tightly in my blanket. I was too stunned to even tremble.

     Is this part of the inspection? I wondered. Are they going to interrogate us here in the middle of the night? Mother moaned and wrapped Father’s coat around his shoulders. Where does she think he’ll be going on a night like this?

     A man with dozens of pock-mark scars on his face strode to my parents’ side of the cabin. He wore the badge of the People’s Safety Agency [from North Korea (WIPpeter's note)] on his dark green overcoat. His heavy boots shook the floor with each forceful stomp he took. When he grabbed Father by the neck and yanked him out of bed, I yelped like a wounded animal.  

 

     The scar-faced man turned on his heel without letting go of my father and pointed at me. “The girl,” Pock-Marks ordered in a hoarse rasp, and immediately two officers were towering over my bedside. I bit my lip to keep from crying when I saw the guns swinging from their hips. I covered my face with my hands, trying to disappear by sheer force of will. I squeaked as the younger of the two officers lifted me up and swung me over his shoulder so that I was hanging down over his back. Mother ran towards them with my coat, but they ignored both her pathetic pleading and my frantic kicking.      

     “Take her to the precinct office,” ordered the scar-faced leader, and before I had time to call out again, I was outside in the wind and snow. Still in my nightgown, with no shoes or coat or blanket to ward off the biting cold, I hung helplessly over the young officer’s shoulder, nauseous from fear. 

     I strained my neck and saw Father standing in the doorway as soldiers roughly shoved him forward. He was staring straight ahead. He winced in pain as they fastened his wrists, then turned to see me watching him. Weakly, Father smiled at me, nodding his head slightly in my direction. As the officer carrying me turned a sharp corner, I clung desperately to that last image of Father.