물꼬를 트다트다

To open the sluice gate.

Moranbong, Pyongyang, March 5th, 1952

The guard approached the wooden door set into the concrete bunker’s wall, gently depressing the handle.

Nothing happened. He tried again, pushing on it forcefully - but the door didn’t budge.

“Chairman?” the guard called out. There was no reply.

The guard looked to the secretary sitting at the desk nearby and motioned him over. The two pushed on the door collectively, but still nothing happened.

The growing commotion in the hall attracted yet more guards, adjutants, and secretaries. It took the effort of five men to push the door bodily off its hinges, causing it to collapse inwards.

Two guards burst in, Tokraevs drawn. The room was darkened, with only the light of a single oil lamp burning in the far corner. A form could be seen on the floor.

The guards rushed to the side of the Chairman. His face was covered in sweat, and he was curled into a ball amidst scattered papers. A flask lay beside him.

“Move! Move! Away!” the Chairman’s personal doctor, Tae Pyon-ri shouted. The guards cleared a path as the doctor, a man in his sixties, crouched beside his patients.

“Water!” the doctor commanded. A bucket and a rag was brought directly.

As the doctor mopped the Chairman’s face, his eyes opened. The guards looked on silently, the unspoken assumption of the Chairman’s condition going between them.

“Chairman? Do you wake?” Tae Pyon-ri asked softly.

The Chairman looked around the room, coming to his senses. He made to sit up, but the doctor restrained him.

“What has occurred, Comrade Chairman?”

“I have seen… I know that there… are… intruders. Intruders in the land. Intruders in the bunker.”

“Chairman,” the Doctor said quietly. “These are trusted men. You are well protected from the enemies of the state.”

The chairman looked dazed, only able to speak with difficulty as he was sat up and led to his private quarters. The news of Kim Il-Sung’s collapse spread throughout the upper echelons of the DPRK. Some said it was a heart attack, others a nervous collapse. Tae Pyon-ri privately believed it was a stroke.

For the guards around Kim, beefed-up, more visible protection became top priority. Orders were made to clear Pyongyang of any foreign influence or criminals, without delay or mercy. In the minds of the top Yan’anists and the top Soviet Koreans, however, it meant opportunity.

To be continued…