The Tears of My Soul

February has turned out to be an emotional reading month, what with Lung Yingtai's Big River Big Sea, and now with Kim Hyun Hee's The Tears of My Soul (William Morrow and Company, 1993).

Kim is (present tense coz she is still alive) of course the North Korea spy who blew up the Korean Airlines flight 858 in 1987, killing 115 passengers.

In the aftermath of the bombing, investigators found an idealistic young woman (she was 25 then) who had been transformed by her country into a killing machine.

As the jacket of the book indicated, Kim's story is "poignant, shocking and utterly compelling."

When Kim failed in her mission which she was told would help reunify her country, she tried to commit suicide by biting on a suicide capsule hidden in a cigarette but failed. She was put on trial and received the death sentence, but eventually received a presidential pardon.

During interrogations, Kim initially refused to cooperate let alone confess, but eventually her psychological defenses collapsed, especially after one of the investigators reportedly said:

"There were 115 people aboard that plane. Most were innocent workers, with no political connections whatsoever. They worked their asses off in that boiling hot desert to feed and clothe their families and to give an education to their children. They had been away from home for months and were returning with the money they had knocked themselves out to earn. We don't know why you did it, but you deserve to be struck by lightning for what you have done.

"I know that you didn't act alone and that you were probably put up to it against the price of your life, at least subtly. But damn it, you owe it to the families of those victims to confess so that we can act against those who were truly responsible for this crime. If we lose the essence of our humanity, what more are we than mere animals in the wild; mad, uncivilized beasts? You've just about lost your humanity, young woman. How can we be expected to treat you as a human being? Why should we?"

"Your government has little regard for human life, and I regret that you were one of their pawns. If you had done something noble, there might have been some honor due to you. But taking innocent lives is not honorable. It's evil and it's damned foolish. And you, not realizing just how foolish it was, are all the more foolish yourself … You can think of it like this: You can confess and give absolution of a sort to the families who have lost their loved ones. Or you can die with the blood of 115 lives on your hands, for a country that cares no more for your life than that of a fly. Not even God would want to save you then."

Powerful words those were.