Perfectly Scarred

The One Who Fooled Them All

I glance the guard, who's still in the room.

"I'm not up to anything," I repeat. Granddad watches me, eyes narrowed, as though he's trying to figure me out.

He knows me well; he, too, suspects something. Or perhaps he already knows.

Lisa is now beyond angry with me. She picks up a chair and throws it against the far pane of glass. It just bounces back at her. I see her red face, the veins pulsating in her neck, the anger high.

"Uh-oh," George says. The guard in my cell jumps to attention.

"Leave her. She'll calm down," George says.

"Back in your cell," she says to George, opening the door.

"I'm not finished with my client," he protests. But he doesn't get to say much more because he's strong-armed back into his cell by two guards who come racing in to settle the Lisa situation.

I need Lisa to calm down—she can't lose it now. Lisa has her back to me, deliberately so, a sign of her anger. Her back is heaving up and down as she tries to gather herself.

I write quickly and slam the page against the window adjoining our cells. She's going to ruin this if she doesn't realize what is about to happen.

Turn around, Lisa, turn around. I bang on the glass but of course she can't hear me.

The guards open her door and I pray she doesn't attack them. She finally looks at me, but I've lowered the page.

I can't risk the guards reading what I've written. I rip it up into a million pieces and throw it in the trash. The guards go to either side of her. They hold their hands out in front, like they're taming a wild horse.

Lisa ignores them, turns around to look at me, eyes red like she's been crying.

She thinks she's ruining my life, but she has no idea how much she has saved me. If she had just read my note, she'd understand everything. The guards stay with her for some time, blocking my view. Then, when they leave, she stays where she is, and I stand at the glass willing her to look at me, but she doesn't.

I smile and shake my head. It's not going to work. She can't make me hate her. And there is nothing she can do to stop what is about to happen.

The guards return with our food and deliver a tray to each of us. As they do that, they remove the pen and paper from my cell and dump the Seoul Citadel uniform down on my bed, red scrub pants and a red T-shirt.

George picks up a fork and pokes through the food with a look of disgust. Granddad leaps in, heaping the forkfuls into his mouth. Lisa keeps her back to me, ignoring the guards, ignoring the food, ignoring everybody and everything.

She wants me to hate her, but it's not working. I go to the small toilet in the holding cell to change out of the slip and into the uniform. When I return I smell the food and my stomach rumbles.

There's soup, a beige color that could be anything from vegetable to chicken. For the main course there is meat and two vegetables.

I try the smell and taste test that Lisa taught me as I try to figure out just what exactly this food is.

There is a distinct smell of mint. Or the antiseptic. Perhaps the mint is coming from the meat, which maybe is lamb, but it looks more like dried beef than lamb. I lift the soup bowl to my nose and close my eyes and breathe in. That slight smell of mint.