head, watching Father rushing to relight the fire, his body shaking through his layers of clothing.
We were the first up, my mother and grandparents waiting for some warmth to slide across our two rooms before their strained faces emerged from their blankets and duvets. A little while later I stepped from the house into air so cold it hurt your skin like a million needles and made your eyes stream, and I longed for spring and the summer following, the warmth of sunlight on my face, green shoots in the ground promising food, coloured petals opening into a smile.
I walked across the village towards the public toilets in near silence, a metal bucket swinging in one hand, an old spade and a pick in the other, listening to the crunch of stones under my feet, the breeze rustling at bare tree branches and my breath heavy in my ears. No birdsong – it was too cold – and no cars roaring or buses rumbling.
I loved the quiet, the calm and the stillness; no awkwardness to it, just spacious and free; and I loved the countryside, even in winter with its covering of frost over empty fields of mud, rows of houses with wisps of smoke from their chimneys, leading off into the sky and over the tops of trees.
It was rough and it was basic, but it was home and it was beautiful.
It was Monday, my usual day for collecting night soil, a time I liked because I knew no one else would be up yet. But that day, as I turned the corner, someone else was already standing there, his legs stretched over the ditch, his head bent low, his hands scrabbling at chunks of frozen faeces. I stared at him, not believing quite how tall he was, or how filled out his face was, or how developed his muscles looked, how bright his skin. Or, as he glanced up at me and smiled, how friendly, how content and at ease he seemed to be.
Most of us children of whatever age – no, all of us – were slender verging on skinny, were short to the point of being stunted, had skin that was dry and hair that was brittle, nails broken, muscles thin.
He stood upright, and I looked away from him quickly, not wanting him to know I was watching.
“Hello,” he said, inclining his head.
I gave a courteous smile and a slow nod back, but didn’t look up to meet his eyes. I moved to the ditch closest to me, trying to think who he was. I didn’t recognise him, didn’t know him from school, couldn’t place him in the village, what house he lived in or who his parents were. I couldn’t understand how he looked so healthy, where he could be getting food from.
He must be an excellent citizen, I thought. And his family too.
I rested my bucket nearby, my shovel next to it, and lifted my pick, swinging it in my hands, crashing it down.
“I’ve never done this before,” he said. “We never had to.”
I tried not to frown, didn’t understand why he wouldn’t have had to do this. “It doesn’t smell as bad when it’s frozen,” I offered, “but it takes longer.”
We continued in silence, and occasionally I risked a glance upwards, stopping to catch my breath, rubbing my aching back, watching his arms. With those muscles, they should’ve been so much more capable than mine, but they seemed surprisingly weak. My eyes drifted across the village and I noticed a woman watching me – someone else I didn’t recognise. As I struggled to lift the pick above my head and bring it down into the ditches of frozen excrement, her eyes never strayed from me. And it wasn’t until I’d finished, when I’d thrown the last lump into the bucket, bringing the level to the top, that she unfolded her arms and walked away.
First this strange boy, I thought, and now a peculiar woman.
“Can I walk with you?” the boy asked. “I’m not sure where to go.”
I stared at him. A simple request. A few words. But it felt like more. I nodded my reply, though, and we struggled down the path, alongside the fields and away towards the buildings, and I watched his feet walking, his fingers stretching round the handle of the bucket, and I listened to his laboured breathing next to me.
I was an innocent fifteen, had never had a boyfriend, never kissed, never held hands, or even thought that way about anyone. I didn’t know about sex, or how babies were made. We had no dating culture, just marriages, arranged usually through parents. Our Dear Leader gave special instruction that men should marry at thirty, women at twenty-eight, and children should be had only in marriage.
But as I walked with this unknown boy, I felt the possibility of something – something I didn’t understand.
“Tell me,” he said, his voice warm in the cold air, “why do we have to do this?”
My heart smiled at his naivety. “They use it as fertiliser for the crops,” I replied, my own voice quiet and trembling with nerves. “Every family provides a bucketful each week, then it’s defrosted and spread on the fields. But we don’t have any toilets at home.” I shrugged, took a breath, gathered my thoughts and glanced again at his face. “We used to be given a chit in exchange. Then when we handed the chit over, we’d be given food. But that doesn’t happen any more.”
“Why?”
I paused a moment. I’d never thought why. “I don’t think there is much,” I replied. “Food, that is.” But the second the words were out, I regretted them. What would he think I was saying about our Dear Leader? That He couldn’t provide for us, the Father of our Nation? I hadn’t intended that meaning, but I didn’t know who this person was; he could be a spy, reporting back those not faithful, who would then be arrested and disappear. All for an innocent comment misconstrued.
“Because of the floods and the cold weather,” I said. “And the bastard Americans,” I added for good measure.
He nodded.
I wanted to ask him where he’d come from. Why he was here. What life was like outside the village. Who his parents were. What they did. If he knew that woman who’d been watching me. But I didn’t dare.
I struggled along with my bucket and spade and pick, my fingers stiff from the cold and the metal handle of the bucket burning my skin. Every now and then I sensed the boy’s head turn and his eyes rest upon me.
We reached the building without another word and it was strange, not because it felt awkward, but the opposite; because the silence between us didn’t feel empty, it felt comfortable and natural, like there was no need to speak.
Our buckets were emptied when we arrived, our chits, despite them being unnecessary, were given and together we wandered out.
“My name’s Sook,” he said, tilting his head towards me.
“Yoora,” I replied.
He smiled, and I watched his eyes flit over me. “You look hungry.”
I didn’t reply. Weren’t we all?
“Here,” he said and pulled his hand from deep inside a trouser pocket.
My eyes struggled against the cold, trying to focus, frowning at a bun sitting in his palm. I shook my head. Nobody, nobody, gave food away for free. “I can’t take that,” I said.
“Please,” he whispered.
“But… where did you get it? The… the markets are miles away and you’d need a permit to go… and…”
“My
