The Girl with Seven Names: a north Korean Defector’s Story

The secret photograph
A few months after the visit to the fortune-teller, during the summer school
vacation, my mother had taken Min-ho somewhere and had left me at my
grandmother’s house for the day. She was a fascinating woman, intelligent,
and always full of stories. Her silver hair was pinned back in the old Korean
style, with a needle through the bun. On this particular visit, however, she
told me a story that devastated me.
To this day I’m not sure why she did it. She wasn’t being mischievous.
And I don’t think her mind was weakening, making her forgetful of what
should stay secret. The only explanation I can think of is that she thought I
should know the truth while I was young, because I’d find it easier to come
to terms with as a girl than if I discovered it later, as a grown woman. If
that’s what she was thinking, she made a terrible misjudgement.
It was a warm Saturday morning and the door and windows were open.
Outside in the yard, jays were chirping and drinking water from a bowl. We
were sitting at her table when she began looking at me with an odd
intensity. She said softly: ‘You know, your father isn’t your real father.’
I didn’t take in what she’d said.
She reached across and squeezed my hand. ‘Your name is Kim. Not
Park.’
There was a long pause. I didn’t see where this was going, but I might
have smiled uncertainly. This could be one of her jokes. Like my mother,
she had quite a sense of humour.
Seeing my confusion, she said: ‘It’s the truth.’
She stood and went over to the glass cabinet where she kept her best
bowls and plates. It had a small drawer in the bottom. She bent down stiffly.
At the back of her neck I could see the string on which she kept her Party

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card. She retrieved a cardboard envelope, and handed it to me. It smelled
damp.
‘Open it.’
I put my hand inside and pulled out a black and white photograph. It
showed a wedding party. I recognized my mother at once. She was the bride
in the centre, wearing a beautiful chima jeogori. But the scene didn’t make
sense. The groom next to her was not my father. He was tall and handsome
with slicked-back hair, and dressed in a Western-style suit. Behind them
was a vast bronze statue of Kim Il-sung, arm outstretched, as if giving
traffic directions.
My grandmother pointed to the groom in the suit. ‘That’s your father.
And this lady …’ She pointed to a beautiful woman to the man’s right. ‘…
is his sister – your aunt. She’s a film actress in Pyongyang. You strongly
resemble her.’ She sighed. ‘Your real father was a nice man, and he loved
you a lot.’
The room seemed to go dim. Whatever tethered me to reality had just
been cut. I was floating in unreality, and deeply confused.
She explained that my mother had loved my father so much that she
could not live with the man she’d married, my biological father. She’d
divorced him.
My father is not my father? My eyes started brimming with tears. How
could she say that?
I said nothing. She seemed to read the next question forming in my mind.
I couldn’t open my mouth to ask it. I think if I’d opened my mouth I would
have fallen apart.
‘Min-ho is your half-brother,’ she said, nodding.
I stared at her, but she ploughed on.
‘A couple of years ago, when your mother visited your Uncle Money in
Pyongyang, she bumped into your real father in the street …’
A chill went through me. I did not like her calling this person my father.
‘… She had a photo of you in her purse and showed it to him. He didn’t
say anything. He just looked at it for a long time, then he slipped it into his
pocket before she could stop him, and walked away. So he has your
picture.’ My grandmother’s eyes drifted to the window and the mountains.
‘After that, I wrote to his sister the actress to ask what had happened to him.

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She told me he had remarried soon after the divorce and had twin girls, one
of whom he named Ji-hae, after you.’