The World Is Bigger Now by Euna Lee

Author:Euna Lee [Lee, Euna; with Dickey, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-71615-6
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2010-09-28T04:00:00+00:00

In the beginning, I didn’t write to Michael every day. But later, after my interrogations were over, I wrote for hours on end, filling pages with my thoughts, feelings, and fears. For now, though, I’d write a few thoughts to Michael, or sometimes draw pictures of him and Hana, until Officer Lee arrived for my morning interrogation. I also drew a calendar for myself to tick off the days as they went by.

Every day except Sunday, Officer Lee would call me into the living room for interrogation. And despite the fact that he was aggressive and cold, provoking and manipulating me psychologically, I actually found myself looking forward to his arrival. He was my antagonist and my captor, but he was an intelligent man whom I could at least have some kind of meaningful interaction with. And he was sometimes the only person I spoke to—if it weren’t for answering his questions, I might not speak at all for the entire day.

In the course of my interrogations, Officer Lee would bully, mock, threaten, and cajole to get the answers he was looking for. If I didn’t give them, he would get angry and yell at me. These hours of questioning were exhausting, as I was constantly on guard. Officer Lee never tortured me, but he did play mind games intended to drive me to say things he wanted to hear. By the time we stopped for lunch, I was already emotionally and physically spent.

The guards brought lunch around 12:30, usually rice, a piece of fried fish, and vegetables. As with breakfast, I ate slowly, drawing what little pleasure I could out of the simple act of eating. Most days, after lunch, Officer Lee would come back for a second round of interrogations. Because these afternoon sessions might last for up to five hours, they were even more exhausting than the morning sessions.

Dinner came at 7:30 P.M., and I usually tried to go to sleep by 10 P.M. or so. The evening hours were hard, because I would think about Michael and Hana at home and wonder what they were doing. Lying in the dark in my room, alone for another night, I would pray to God for strength to get through the days until I might return home. Would He answer my prayers? At that point in my captivity, I wasn’t sure He was even hearing them.

With the monotony of my daily life and the unrelenting pressure of Officer Lee’s interrogations, any change was welcome. And after seeing the Swedish ambassador on March 30, I got a particularly nice treat when Officer Lee passed along a bag of food items that the ambassador had brought for me. Inside, there was a bottle of orange juice, three cans of Coke, peanut butter, chocolate, Nutella, potato chips, and bread. Food from home! I was so excited! I drank the whole bottle of orange juice that day—I had been craving citrus and hadn’t tasted anything so good in a long time.

But the care package came with a cost, too.

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