21. Kosan Combined Fruit Farm
KOSAN COMBINED FRUIT FARM
MARINA
“Do you think your headache will be recovered enough to visit the Kosan apple farm?” Miss Park asked quietly, leaning forward from the back row of seats in the van.
Marina shook her head as if to clear it: “Yes, of course.”
Mr. Choe turned onto another long, gravel lane. She saw a clearing up ahead.
The mountains rose green and close on both sides, close enough that the road seemed to have been threaded between them rather than built.
A lurid propaganda monument stood at the bend where the lane straightened: white marble, a stylized mural of Kim Jong-il towering over a field of blossoms that didn't exist anywhere Marina had yet seen in this country.
Beside it, a stone pillar with the DPRK gold star medallion on top, and a heroic, inspiring slogan in red, carved top to bottom.
A farmer pedaled past an old bicycle, unhurried, a woven basket bouncing on the handlebars, watching the van approach without sparing a glance at the propaganda.
Marina catalogued it anyway. Sightline down the valley. One road in, one road out, as far as she could tell. A red banner staked into the grass nearby, its slogan too fast to read, snapping once in the wind before going slack again.
The driver's rifle was propped between his seat and the door, close enough that she could see the scuffed bluing along its stock. He hadn't said a word since the checkpoint.
"We are almost there," Miss Wu offered, from the third row.
Ri, beside her, said nothing. He was watching the monument recede in the side mirror the way he watched everything here — taking it in as well, she suspected, though for entirely different reasons than she did.
The van slowed at a low administrative building, whitewashed, a red flag hanging dead in the still air above the door.
A welcoming committee had already assembled on the steps — a site director in a buttoned tunic, two women in matching floral blouses holding a woven basket between them, a man with a camera that looked older than Marina.
She stepped down into heat that smelled of cut grass and diesel and, underneath it, something sweeter — fruit, ripening somewhere close.
The introductions took longer than the walk that followed them.
Names, titles, a hand pressed warmly around hers by the director, an offered basket she accepted because refusing would have created a tiny international incident.
Then they were moving around the side of the building, past a row of parked bicycles leaning against a fence, and the land simply opened.
She bought cider in the farm store, a plain fruit juice which she bowed and offered to Mr. Choe, and two wine bottles of sparkling alcoholic cider, one for the ladies, and one for her and Ri.
She bought commemorative glasses for them to drink with.
By the time she got to the cash register, the farm director was smiling.
They left the store to see the main attraction behind it: the orchard. The sweet smell increased, the scent of grass and apples, warmed by sunshine. In the distance, movement caught her eyes: the flitter of butterflies, the drowsy flight of bees drunk on nectar.
The orchard was vast, spreading across the valley.
It fell away from her in long green corridors, row after row of trees marching to the horizon in perfect diagonal lines, the orchard rolling out over gentle hills until it met the blue haze of mountains on the far side of the valley.
A road ran arrow-straight through the middle of it, white gravel cutting the green in half.
Banners hung at intervals along the nearest rows, red and gold, exhorting something she couldn't read from here.
It didn't need translating. It was the same message the whole country had been giving her since she'd landed: look what discipline can build.
They had built something beautiful, she had to admit.
She wanted to hate it. She wanted to dislike everything here. Instead, she was rooted to the spot, taking in the splendor.
Miss Park and Miss Wu were chatting, sitting on a bench and opening the cider bottle. Its cork came off with a pressurized pop. The driver sat down beside them, offering his glass for him too to drink the boozy cider; the carton of virgin fruit juice sitting on the ground between his feet.
Ri appeared beside her.
“It’s beautiful.”
She nodded, swallowing.
“Go see, it, take a walk,” the director urged them.
Miss Park, Miss Wu and Mr. Choe all looked at them briefly, then Miss Park smiled and made a shooing gesture.
In her heart, Ri took her hand and led her into the orchard. But they were in Joseon, so he did not.
They walked in silence through the trees. The branches intermittently shaded the ground, sunlight dappling through the leaves, and bright blinking beams of sun between the trees.
She was soon taken over by the redolence of apples and tall grass. The conversation on the bench got quieter and quieter; Marina and Ri walked further and further out.
They wound through the trees, and the world dropped away behind them.
She stumbled slightly, and he looked back to check on her.
His eyes rested on her, careful as always. A faint smile lit his face.
She knew she was smiling too.
Because he was with her. They were together.
This was the impossible truth.
She loved him.
She was in love with Ri Sung-cheol.
He stopped under the shade of an old tree, turning on his heel. He held up the bottle in one hand, and two glasses that he held in the other.
“Is this a good spot?” he asked.
She looked around them. No one. Looked back at him, and he lowered his arms. She took a step towards him, and his gaze darkened.
“Is it?” she asked, uncertain.
He answered, certain: wrapping his arms around her, the cider bottle cool on her back. They sank down in the tall grass, and the curtain of her hair falling on his cheek she took as a sign, improbable as it was, that they were alone and in private now.
He went still underneath her. “I didn’t bring anything.”
She leaned down in his ear: “I didn’t either. I didn’t want to.”
He closed his eyes and let out a breath.
Like he was gone, retreating, and just as quickly he was back.
They were quick—there was no time to lose.
She pulled her skirt up around her hips.
Safety was relative, and measured in minutes.
There was always a clock in Joseon, and it was always counting down.