아이와 늙은이는 괴는 데로 간다

The young and the old will go to where they are loved.

[Milestone: Nationwide Census 1/]

Pyongyang, March 29th, 1950

With the return of the victorious soldiers of the KVA, the head of the Labour Department, O Ki-Sop had an issue. Never mind the difficulties brought on by the cleaving of the Korean peninsula in two, but the intense displacement of the Worldwide Anti-Fascist War and then the Brotherhood Liberation War in China had created havoc when it came to the actual population of the north of Korea. Estimates varied wildly. No one really knew how many people had been thrown or forced out of the north (not that O Ki-Sop had any sympathies with those who had been forced to leave), how many had been killed in the Special Internal Operation led by the Security Bureau, or indeed how many men had actually returned with the Korean Volunteer Army.

O Ki-Sop pulled his glasses off after a fresh look over the compendious rolls of half-complete census data dating from the time of the Japanese rule. Not only was it in Japanese, a language he did not read particularly well - but it was written in Japanese by a Korean hand, and rather in a hurry it seemed. He knew that it would not suffice. He got to his feet and exited the draughty office at the end of the hall that had been allocated to the Labour Department.

The People's Committee had been housed in a number of ad-hoc office buildings and abandoned Imperialist government structures for its existence, and this was still the case in March of 1950. An old post office building and telephone exchange had been converted for use by the various ministries of government, often jammed hodgepodge over each other while a new structure was conceived in the heart of Pyongyang. Thus O Ki-Sop had to leave his small office, trek up two flights and down three hallways before reaching the antechamber of Pak Il-U's office.

Pak Il-U, head of the Internal Affairs department, was amongst the only members of the People's Committee who was roundly feared and roundly hated. As the village head will be bad-mouthed under the bridge, the head of the internal affairs department who knew the tax information of all of the other members, who had access to their records going back decades - who knew each of the other member's crimes and proclivities, their sin and vice - was singularly feared. O Ki-Sop did not like being in Pak's office, which was the largest in the building through an "accounting mistake."

He gathered his courage for a few moments before knocking and pushing the door open. Pak Il-U looked at O with his protuberant, reflective glasses. A light rain beat on the windows that coated two walls of the spacious office. "To what do I owe this pleasure, O Ki-Sop?"

"I come... to ask for the Internal Affair's Department favour in the conductance of - a national census," O Ki-Sop said, his voice faltering. It only took one dogeared tax return, with O Ki-Sop's large imported wine expenditures circled on it, in his inbox to get him to fear Pak Il-U's disfavour. Expensive Italian wine was decadent and anti-revolutionary, after all.

"A census?" Pak asked. He smiled, broadly. Pak was among the men whose smiles were not joyful, but rather from a place of predatory enjoyment. The same smile from watching a cockroach crushed underboot struggle in the last moments of its already short life.

O Ki-Sop bent forward, bowing to a probably overobsequious degree.

"Of course," Pak said after a long, enjoyable moment of milking the kowtow. "In fact, this was a program I wished to initiate myself. Naturally, I will mention your suggestion to the committee when I present it. Seeing as the Internal Affairs Department shall conduct it, however - you understand it will be under my personal command."

O Ki-Sop's expression faltered, before he entered another bow. "As you like it."

"The census shall be thorough. I shall instruct Ju Hwang-sop of the Postal Department to begin with door-to-door surveys in the city. You will instruct each factory, mill, and mine to conduct an internal census. The Security Bureau shall audit the armed forces."

O Ki-Sop made a mental note of these things. It was only after a long silence that Pak Il-U added: "You will be very useful to me in this matter. And other matters, O Ki-Sop. Keep our relationship in good mind. It will only be beneficial of you to continue in your cooperative nature."

To be continued...