Linh Chu

“Chang-bo took to his bed, or rather to the quilts on the floor that was all they had left. His legs swelled up like balloons with what Mrs. Song had come to recognize as edema — fluid retention brought on by starvation. He talked incessantly about food. He spoke of the tofu soups his mother made him as a child and an unusually delicious meal of steamed crab with ginger that Mrs. Song had cooked for him when they were newlyweds. He had an uncanny ability to remember details of dishes she had cooked decades earlier. He was sweetly sentimental, even romantic, when he spoke about their meals together. He would take her hand in his own, his eyes wet and cloudy with the mist of his memories.
“Come, darling. Let’s go to a good restaurant and order a nice bottle of wine,” he told his wife one morning when they were stirring on the blankets. They hadn’t eaten in three days. Mrs. Song looked at her husband with alarm, worried that he was hallucinating.
She ran out the door to the market, moving fast and forgetting all about the pain in her back. She was determined to steal, beg — whatever it took — to get some food for her husband. She spotted her older sister selling noodles. Her sister wasn’t faring well — her skin was flaked just like Chang-bo’s from malnutrition — so Mrs. Song had resisted asking her for help, but now she was desperate, and of course, her sister couldn’t refuse.
“I’ll pay you back,” Mrs. Song promised as she ran back home, the adrenaline pumping her legs.
Chang-bo was curled up on his side under the blanket. Mrs. Song called his name. When he didn’t respond, she went to turn him over — it wasn’t diffcult now that he had lost so much weight, but his legs and arms were stiff and got in the way.
Mrs. Song pounded and pounded on his chest, screaming for help even as she knew it was too late.”
― Barbara Demick, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

“Trong giọng hát của Phương như đều đều hơi thở tâm hồn của một lớp thanh niên được sinh ra ở đời chỉ cốt dành cho cuộc chiến tranh bắt đầu từ ngày hôm ấy. Trên khuôn mặt nghiêm nghị của một trong ba người linh nước mắt nặng nề ứa ra dưới cặp lông mày nhíu lại. Chiến tranh! Chiến tranh! ấy chính là tiếng gầm của biển trong suốt đêm bốn rạng mồng năm tháng tám. Bãi cát dài hình vòng cung ầm ầm sóng xô. Đột ngột hai đốm lửa bay chéo ra từ cùng một điểm trên trời tách thành hai làn chớp biếc vụt sa xuống. Những người ngủ trong bãi cát và ngủ trong lều vải đã thức cả dậy tới quây quần bên đống lửa đã lụi. Tất cả đều im lặng. dường như cùng nín thở.”
― Bảo Ninh, Nỗi buồn chiến tranh