The Beloved Daughter by Alana Terry Page B

she dead?” a man asked.
    “I would say so,” answered the second.
    “Should we clean it up?”
    “Leave her there. The train will arrive in the morning. It should make her a pretty example for anyone else thinking of escape.”
    Still trembling, I listened to the guards’ receding footsteps. I sat in a terrified daze for what must have been at least an hour, but nobody returned.
    Eventually, the full moon began its nocturnal ascent. The hoot of an owl interrupted the stillness, and for the first time I realized how cold it was.
    “You’re shivering,” whispered Shin. I didn’t say anything. Thoughts of freedom and escape intermingled with the dread of discovery and detainment. “Please,” Shin continued, shifting his weight, “let me give you my coat.” Before I could react, Shin wrapped a makeshift burlap jacket around my shoulders. His hand brushed against my cheek, and he cleared his throat.
    I thought about Shin’s words: “They won’t finish sorting through all this rubble for days. If we disappear on the morning train, wouldn’t they simply assume we were dead?”
    Would they? It sounded more like wishful thinking than trustworthy logic to me. But if I went back to my unit at camp, wouldn’t the guards punish me? Wouldn’t they assume I tried to help the prisoner whose body now lay within a few meters of my handmade refuge? I thought about faking an injury from the fire, but the inner building was already searched. Who would believe me?
    Fear kept me crouched behind the crates. I didn’t want to escape with Shin. I knew it would never work. But I couldn’t forget the Old Woman’s words that continued to beckon to me eight months after her death: “You have the seal of freedom upon your forehead.” The Old Woman had been so convinced that I would one day throw off my prisoner uniform and escape the confines of Camp 22. “ God Almighty will himself provide you safe escort beyond prison walls.” In spite of the Old Woman’s confidence, my fear of punishment was just as strong a restraint as Camp 22’s electric fence.
    I wasn’t willing to flee, but I knew it was too late to return to the dorm. The self-criticism sessions were probably halfway done by now. And so I waited.
    Wishing I were safe with my unit, I begged the darkness to conceal me and the dawn to arrive quickly.

 
     
     
    Light of Dawn
     
    “The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.” Proverbs 4:18
     

     
    There are some sounds that are so sweet, so sacred in the recesses of my mind, they will always remain with me: my father’s confession in the Hasambong precinct building, the Old Woman’s hymns of praise, the train’s whistle as Shin and I escaped Camp 22 crouched hidden in a coal car.
    For the first time since I was a young girl of twelve, I was outside the heavily patrolled borders of the camp. Yet as I hid in the train car that raced me away from my prison of nine years, I knew the road ahead of me held many dangers.
    It was just before dawn, and there was not enough light in the coal car to allow me to study my fellow runaway. I thought about our conversation last night, when Shin and I sat side by side behind our makeshift shelter of crates in the train station. Shin spoke briefly of his young daughter. He arranged safe passage into Yanji, China for her eight months earlier.
    “My wife is dead,” Shin explained in the darkness. “My little girl is all I have left.”
    Based on his appearance and speech, I tried to guess Shin’s age. He was skinny but not yet emaciated; in spite of his internment at Camp 22, he still appeared to have most of his health and vigor. I wondered about his past, but Shin remained elusive. I suspected he was well-off, both financially and politically, before his arrest. I figured that sending a minor to China safely required significant bribe money and appropriate contacts. Shin’s burlap coat revealed a resourceful