The Beloved Daughter Read Online Free PDF

swallow a live cricket, and how to eat the meat from a raw rat. Prisoners were brutally beaten or even killed for consuming anything other than the allotted camp rations, but we would die if we didn’t somehow supplement our daily handful of gruel. Many a fight broke out, even amongst us young girls, over who was the first to spot one of the scarce insects or rodents that were hunted illegally in the camp.
    During my survival education as a prisoner at Camp 22, I also learned about some other ways to get by as a female prisoner. In the camp, there were favors girls could offer the guards that would ensure relative peace and comfort, including some extra food. By the time I graduated from the Camp 22 middle school, I was acutely aware of the forbidden liaisons that existed between the young female prisoners and our male captors. This overly sensual atmosphere, in spite of our squalid and primitive lifestyle, was especially noticeable in the garment factory where the prettiest girls and the most vigorous guards were sent by some unspoken rule of the camp. I was not all that surprised to find that it was the girls who were often the aggressors, practically forcing the guards to sleep with them and then demanding an extra ration of food or a blanket to cover with on the cold winter nights.
    I managed until now to get through my torture under Agent Lee in the detainment center and my first two years working in the garment factory with my purity intact. But that didn’t blind me to the illicit activities that went on in the guards’ offices in back of the factory. I had known for a while about my friend Mee-Kyong’s association with a fiery-tempered Agent Pang. I once tried warning Mee-Kyong about him, but my unsolicited advice only made her angry. She refused to talk to me for a week. And now, as we worked side by side in the fabric-cutting line, Mee-Kyong whispered in my ear about the comrade who shared an office in the back corridor with her lover.
    “Officer Yeong told Agent Pang that he wanted to find a nice young prisoner to take his old office maid’s place.” The role of office maid in the garment factory was a legitimate title for a few select female prisoners, but in reality the job description was hardly any different than that of a prostitute.
    “You can’t get involved with Officer Yeong. Agent Pang would kill you both,” I added, with more seriousness than jest. I knew that if another man even walked by Mee-Kyong in the cutting line, she had to spend her entire lunch break appeasing Agent Pang’s jealous wrath with every ounce of feminine charm she could muster. Even so, Mee-Kyong usually ended up with a new bruise or two after the encounter was over.
    Mee-Kyong pretended to smile, but her eyes wandered to the back hallway where her lover worked. “Actually,” Mee-Kyong admitted, her voice barely above a whisper, “I was thinking about recommending you.”
    I pretended to act surprised. “Me?” As a matter of fact, I kept trying to work up the nerve to ask Mee-Kyong to show me how to get the attention of a young guard. I was nearly seventeen years old, with no hope of ever leaving Camp 22. In the dorms I could easily point out the girls who were sleeping with the guards because their ribs didn’t protrude quite as much from their sides, and their cheekbones were not quite as hollow as the rest of ours. Often they had blankets, and some wore new underclothes. One brazen prisoner even boasted of the bath she took with her lover. For those of us who were only allowed to shower twice a year, her lifestyle seemed luxurious indeed. Unfortunately, a few weeks later she disappeared, two days after she confided in a fellow prisoner that she was pregnant.
    When I thought about Mee-Kyong’s proposal, however, the risks of sleeping with an officer paled next to the promise of a few extra calories. Starving to death on the meager camp rations, I didn’t bother to question my conscience. I didn’t wonder what