Fighting Pax. Robin Jarvis

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      “I don’t want my damn face on TV!” Lee had growled, among other things that didn’t get translated.

      “What they do to you?” he was badgered. “What they do?”

      “You really wanna know?” he snarled back. “They dragged my girlfriend to an abattoir and slaughtered her like a pig, that’s what. Then those sick bastards fed her to us. You got that? You comprende that? Yeah, you heard right – they fed her to us!”

      And so the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea learned about Dancing Jax. For once the ceaseless, bombastic propaganda machine didn’t need to exaggerate the evils of the imperialist Western aggressors; in fact, it concentrated its efforts in downplaying the dangers to dampen the mounting sense of panic. Yes, it was a state of emergency and they stood alone against the entire world, but that was nothing new. Such a crisis is what their founder, Kim Il-sung, foresaw in his great wisdom and why they would survive even this. Whatever threatened their borders would be dealt with. They had no need to fear. Kim Jong-un, the founder’s grandson, would ensure no harm would come to his people. They would remain isolated from the world and stay safe.

      But the presence of the foreign children was a constant reminder of the outside danger and so, when that first week was over, the special treatment, the visits, the interviews stopped. Then the only adult female, Mrs Benedict, was found dead in the bathroom of their hotel. She had killed herself and the euphoria of having escaped the camp died with her. Two nights later, they were all removed from Pyongyang.

      Maggie recalled that less comfortable journey in the back of military trucks through rugged, hilly terrain and seemingly endless forests, along rudimentary roads until, finally, they reached this secret base built into the mountain. The holiday was over. They had swapped one prison for another.

      “Your face will freeze and drop off out here,” a friendly voice declared.

      The teenage girl blinked. She had stared into the fog too long and her eyes ached. Turning away from the blank void, she saw a neat, elderly gentleman approaching along the terrace.

      “Morning, Gerald,” she called, glad to see him. “I was miles away.”

      “A chon for your thoughts?”

      “Oh – I was thinking back to when we first got here.”

      The man clapped his gloved hands and shuddered inside his overcoat.

      “All those months ago,” he said. “When you piled out of those wagons. It was like something from Oliver! I almost started singing ‘Consider yourself’ and giving you my Artful Dodger.”

      He gripped his lapels and did some nimble footwork. Maggie laughed.

      “More like an Artful Codger nowadays, mind,” he chuckled.

      “I wish I’d seen you back when you were performing,” Maggie said. “I bet you were amazing.”

      Gerald Benning put his arm round her. He never really spoke about his show-business past, but somehow word had got around the children here, probably via Martin, and they liked to ask him questions about his former life. Gerald always answered with good humour, but usually steered the conversation around to other things and asked them about themselves. He thought it was important to remind them, especially the younger ones, what their world was like before all this had happened.

      He got them talking about the little aspects of that time, the simple things that they’d forgotten: family holidays, best birthday presents, favourite movies and songs, names of pets and who they’d sat next to in school. He didn’t promise them that, one day, those things would return and everything would be as it was. That would have been cruel. They wouldn’t have believed him anyway. But those memories told them they weren’t just refugees dependant on the charity of a suspicious nation, and that there had been goodness and love in their lives, and they shouldn’t hate their parents for rejecting them. It wasn’t their fault. Dancing Jax was to blame.

      Maggie smiled at him. “God knows what we’d have done without you,” she said. “All these months, stuck away up here with less freedom than we had in the camp and nothing to do, day in, day out, but snipe and bitch. We’d have probably killed each other by now. I was ready to strangle that Esther first thing today. She’s worse than she ever was. What a spiteful cow; she’s really doing my head in.”

      “She’s difficult to like, that one,” Gerald conceded. “And, since she went all limpet-like on Nicholas, he’s developed full-blown annoyingness too. But we’re none of us perfect and you’ve all been through enough to send most people round the twist and back again. Being cooped up here like battery hens doesn’t help. Don’t let it get to you. Rise above it, my dear.”

      “You always make it seem better somehow. Even in this miserable place…”

      “Titipu,” he interrupted with a wink. Gerald had mischievously christened the mountain base after the fictional town featured in The Mikado, which was a huge insult to their North Korean hosts. There was nothing but enmity between them and Japan, where The Mikado was set.

      “See, all the kids call it that now. They dunno what it is, but it sounds funny. You’ve given them something to laugh at, as long as the Generals don’t find out. You make it bearable and keep us busy with daft schemes. Look how you wangled your way into the kitchens to make that birthday cake for Lee last month.”

      “He’d have been happier if I’d managed to get him some ciggies.”

      “Oh, don’t expect him to show gratitude, he’s never been the demonstrative type, but that meant a lot to him that did. He’s not the same since Charm… since she died.”

      “Poor girl,” Gerald said sadly. “That was horrific for all of you. I’d like to have known her. She sounds dazzling.”

      Maggie lowered her eyes. “Best friend I ever had,” she said. “Not a day goes by when I don’t think about her – and my Marcus – and miss them. After all these months, it still hurts.”

      “Course it does. And it always will, but it won’t always be as sharp and you’ll remember how good they made you feel more often than the pain of losing them. Takes a long time though.”

      Maggie bit her lip guiltily. She had forgotten the Scottish boy, Alasdair. He had lured the Punchinellos away so that the rest of them could escape. They had all heard the ferocity of the gunfire in those dark woods and understood what it signified. His body was probably still in the New Forest, unburied and picked at by birds and animals – or worse.

      And then there was Mrs Benedict…

      “I should’ve done more to help Charm’s СКАЧАТЬ