Lloyd squirmed, looking at the gate and then back at the Great Hall. He looked miserable. I squeezed your hand. “We should get going if we’re going to go,” I said. As long as I was with you, everything would be fine. I didn’t care about Lloyd, and maybe to be truthful I preferred being alone with you anyway. But you threw him one more plea. “Trust me, it’s going to be all right.” Lloyd let out a loud breath and started for the gate. I rolled my eyes at him, but you grinned and put your arm around me, and your step was light. You clapped Lloyd on the shoulder when we caught up to him, and I felt him lean into us.
You were right, of course. At the end of the road, we came upon an old bus creaking along, looking as if it would break down. It looked like a model of a bus we had in the States in the 1960s, and I wondered if it wouldn’t be faster for us to walk, but you waved it down and we boarded. Lloyd pulled out a few Korean bills from his pocket, to which I added a couple more, and we held them up to the driver. He took the money without counting. I pulled my bandana up over my nose and mouth. The bus smelled like fertilized dirt and garlic and pipe smoke. People stared at us with open mouths, some of them with gaps between their teeth, young and old alike. We pushed our way to the back, where there was an empty spot on the bench seat. I sat in your lap while you and Lloyd squished together. Even though we weren’t going any faster than when we’d walked, I was glad to be out of the sun. Your arms were around my waist, and I thought how I shouldn’t worry. You were grinning the widest grin I’d ever seen. Our adventure, I thought.
The bus took us into a large town. We got off when everyone got off, at what seemed to be the busiest street. You were right about the tour not showing us this town. I hadn’t known it existed. People stared at us, and you smiled at them, said a few words in greeting. Lloyd shook his head. “Jaesung loves being a celebrity. Everywhere we go he has to greet his fans,” he said to me. I moved away. You’d never criticized Lloyd, and here he was trying to get me to side with him against you. I pretended I hadn’t heard him.
I remembered the women cleaning the plaza. You were interested in people, in their everyday lives. You knew they were staring because we wore American clothes, because we were different from them, and you wanted to let them know you saw them. I remembered you and Lloyd at the airport. Lloyd hadn’t seemed to dislike the attention back then.
There was a restaurant across the street. I caught up to you and pointed it out. Lloyd followed, and I wished we could have ducked inside without him, but you held the door and tried to cheer him up by making a joke about eating better here than anywhere else so far and how much Lloyd appreciated good food. Lloyd refused to smile.
Inside a fog of cigarette smoke hovered just above eye level. A woman at a table was spooning filling into dumpling wrappers to make mandu. Her full skirt was wrapped between her legs into temporary pants, her knees drawn up so that even though she sat in a chair, crouching, her feet were beneath her on the seat. She waved us toward the back and then returned to making mandu. People from other tables stared at us but then went back to their conversations. We found an empty table in the corner near a large table with a ring of young men who looked to be our age. They studied us as we took our seats, then resumed talking loudly. As the waitress neared, one of the men caught her arm. I saw her roll her eyes with exasperation at him, but she took down his order before sliding short ceramic cups of barley tea on the table toward us.
“Service is too slow here. We should find another place,” Lloyd said, staring at the waitress while she wrote down an order from another table nearby.
“Go ahead if you want,” I said, hoping he would. His staring at the waitress like that made me uneasy. “We’ll meet you back at the bus stop in an hour.”
“We’ve got to stick together,” you said. “We’ll get something fast, like the mandu that woman up front is making. It looks good.” You had your arm around me and moved me closer to you and away from the table with the men, but I could sense that you were focused on their conversation. Their voices became louder; they were arguing. I heard one of them say in Korean, “They’ll stop at nothing. Those fishermen disappeared.”
“That’s straight kidnapping. That’s the kind of thing North Korea is going to do,” another replied.
“This is taking too long,” Lloyd grumbled, farthest away from those men.
Someone pushed back his chair at the table next to us and scraped the rough-hewn wooden floor. I winced and counted six men, all with the same haircut and open-necked button-down white shirts. They were in a heated debate, cutting each other off. Some leaned forward, and others held them back. “That’s why his brother joined the student movement,” a man said. “Mine too. My brother too.”
Someone knocked a teacup on its side, but it was ignored, and a puddle formed on the table. One man’s sleeve was soaking in it, but he was oblivious. Their voices rose in a crescendo of disagreement. “Yah,” he yelled and then said something in Korean I didn’t catch because you pulled me even closer to you, away from them. Then the tension eased. I heard a few men laugh. But the one who had spoken about his brother wasn’t smiling.
“I’d be upset too if my brother died that way,” Lloyd said. I didn’t realize he’d overheard them until then.
“He’s not upset about that,” you said.
“He just said his brother set himself on fire.” Lloyd’s eyes were narrowed, and he shook his head. “They jumped out of a building that way.”
“The media didn’t cover it, so it was wasted. That’s what he’s talking about.” Your arm tightened around me.
“That’s what the other guy is talking about, but look at him, Jaesung. He said, ‘Dongsaeng.’ It was his little brother, and he couldn’t stop him.”
“Wait,” I interrupted. “What happened?” You removed your arm from my shoulders and leaned toward Lloyd.
“It’s a protest for the world to see,” you said, and I could tell you admired them for it. I felt nervous. It was warm in the restaurant, but a coldness clawed at me.
“They actually think this crazy dictator who’s already killed thousands of his own people gives two shits about kids wrapping themselves in kerosene-soaked sheets, setting themselves on fire, and jumping out of buildings? He’s laughing at them. Fewer people to deal with.” Lloyd’s voice was grim.
“At least they died for something,” you said in a quiet voice, looking calmly at him.
“But look at his brother, Jaesung,” I said because I was beginning to agree with Lloyd. What good did being a martyr do for the ones who loved you?
The man at the table who had been speaking had his head in his hands. The men around him were still arguing, but he was shaking his head now, and the chill expanded in my chest.
You refused to look. “Extreme situations call for extreme responses.”
“You can’t change anything if you’re dead. Who’s going to be left?” Lloyd said.
“Lloyd’s right,” I said. “It’s harder to stay in the fight and keep trying to make changes than to quit.”