될성부른 나무는나무는 떡잎부터떡잎부터 알아본다알아본다

As for a promising tree, you can tell its potential from its seed leaf.

Sancheon-ri, Chuncheon, February 5th, 1952

Yoon Si-u cupped his hands around his coffee mug, feeling small and miserable. He had been shaking practically uncontrollably since this morning after an American aircraft had strafed the convoy he had been traveling in. While the anti-bandit operations and the Fatherland Liberation War had familiarized him with the rattle of machine-guns, he had never become used to the sight of gore and misery that a bombing raid brought. A 250-pound bomb had landed next to him as he hid in the ditch; while it had failed to detonate initially, he was forced to practically hug it for the next thirty minutes in case the fighter-bombers came back and strafed the convoy again.

He wished he had pretended sickness that morning. He wished he had rejected the meeting with his immediate superior, the Interior Minister Pak Il-u. But he knew better than to keep that Great Man waiting. Being the waiting-boy of a Great Man was a thankless job - and it seemed to Yoon Si-u that he had only changed out Lee Chang-ok for another brutal psychopath.

When the Interior Minister bustled into the room, Yoon Si-u stood up quickly - almost dropping his coffee cup in the process. Pak didn’t look good - his glasses fit his face increasingly poorly, and he had put on 10 or 15 kilograms since the war started. He smelled of alcohol constantly now.

“You must return north,” he said shortly.

“Sir?” Yoon Si-u said, confused.

“You must return to the north to remove a recalcitrant pimple from the face of our People’s Republic, Yoon Si-u.”

“I do not know what you mean, sir.”

“The Soviet Koreans! The damned Soviet Koreans, I mean,” he said, waving his arms in broad, sweeping gestures. “They are bastards to a man, and they mean to give our country over to the Soviets as soon as this war is over. After all, what other reason is there for a Soviet Army to be in our country again? They left voluntarily in 1948, and yet, now they are back. And why is that, Yoon Si-u?”

Yoon Si-u had thought it was to help with the war effort, but he knew better than to reply.

“It is because they are afraid of what would happen should China replace them! The PRC can provide us all the manpower we could ever want, but the Soviets block it.” He went on for ten minutes about the perfidy of the Soviets, veering into direct insults about ‘the Great Russian’ as the Koreans had nicknamed him.

“Sir,” Yoon ventured when Pak had exhausted himself and slumped into a chair. “What would you like the Ministry of Social Security to do?”

“Your personal work in the establishment of the Red Guard Brigades is appreciated by the state,” Pak Il-u said, “but such a task can be delegated to inferiors. For the security of the state, you must return north and direct an operation to remove the Soviet tendrils from our government. You must be as a fox is in the trees - cunning, craftful, and devastating where you choose to strike. I will be expanding your ministry for this purpose.”

“Spy on our own citizens, sir?”

“Spy on our Ministers! Surely you knew this would be a part of your job. They cannot be trusted - the scheming, lying masses,” Pak said.

Yoon Si-u nodded stiffly. As he turned to leave and find transportation to the north, Pak stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“And eat something. You’re a minister, you’re entitled to full rations. You cannot drop dead on me.”

Yoon Si-u could only manage a grimace.

To be continued…