The Borderlands

Abstract

The tunnel was low, narrow. My yellow hard hat clacked against the chiseled ceiling and I had to stoop as I moved forward. Dim lights had been hammered into the walls and the air was cool. Whenever I touched the rough granite, I felt a gritty dampness on my fingertips. But this cramped space wasn't designed for tourists like me—it was designed for North Korean soldiers who would charge ahead, rifles at the ready.We had been moving through the tunnel in a hunched shuffle for nearly half a mile and I ached to stand up. In the small of my back, at that place where the spine meets the pelvic gridle, my muscles throbbed. I glanced at the jagged ceiling just inches above me and couldn't help but wonder if it would hold. I imagined the rock fissuring open, a thunderous crack, and all of us being crushed in this surreal space. A quick death, I suppose. I focused on each step and considered that I was moving closer to North Korea. If I were able to look up through the tonnage of rock, I'd see landmines planted in rich soil, their coiled bodies waiting in the dark to blossom open.The DMZ is one of the most dangerous places on Earth. It's a gash that runs across the Korean peninsula from the Yellow Sea to the Sea of Japan. The border mostly follows the 38th Parallel. And although it's called a “demilitarized zone,” it is anything but peaceful. Concrete battlements bristle with machine guns, listening devices turn their huge ears toward the enemy, razor wire is scribbled above walls, and thousands of soldiers stare at each other with binoculars. Since the DMZ was established in 1953, hardly a living soul has set foot in it, and this means it has become something of an accidental wildlife refuge. The biodiversity is so unique that it's common to find endangered animals here, like the Asiatic black bear, the Siberian tiger, and the red-crowned crane.In the 1970s, North Korea built several tunnels beneath the DMZ in the hopes of moving troops through them and launching a surprise attack. It was believed that 30,000 soldiers might run through these tunnels and charge Seoul, which is only twenty-five miles away. In October 1978, an underground explosion happened near Panmunjom and the South Korean army immediately suspected that a tunnel was being burrowed beneath their feet. An intercept tunnel was hastily built, and in this way, South Korea discovered what would become known as the Third Tunnel of Aggression (제3땅굴). A fourth tunnel would be discovered a few months later.Today there's no need for secret tunnels because North Korea can lob long-range artillery shells onto Seoul whenever it pleases. Rather than dynamite the Third Tunnel and seal it off for good, the Republic of Korea has transformed it into a bizarre and morally questionable tourist attraction. Before we went down to see it, our guide mentioned that “North Korea built one of the most popular tourist sites on the DMZ. We're now making money off their failure.” He reminded us, yet again, that if we're claustrophobic we should really think twice about going down. “It is not pleasant,” he added with a wide smile.As my hard hat clunked off the low ceiling, and as I moved through the gloom, I thought about how the tunnel had been chiseled into being by slave labor. Just imagine the working conditions. How many men died during the digging? 50? 100? 500? It's impossible to say. At over one mile in length, it must have taken months to bore through the rock.The cold made me shiver and a firework of pain sizzled up my lower back. I wanted to turn around and make my way back to the sunlight but the tunnel was so narrow I couldn't push past anyone. No, we had to continue walking single-file until a concrete wall stopped us—only then could we turn around as a group, and march back the way that we had come.After another ten minutes of stooped walking, we finally reached a concrete wall that had a little window. The tunnel continued on, rising up to North Korea. Darkness loomed ahead in the cold silence and it occurred to me that the “Hermit Kingdom” was so close, just a few hundred yards away. Our guide mentioned that North Korea had blocked up the tunnel on their side, but if they were to attack, soldiers from South Korea would immediately counterattack.“If that happened, we'd be caught in the middle,” he chuckled. There was a pause before he added, “But maybe not today.”Everyone turned around and we plodded back to the entrance. I returned my hard hat, stretched my back, and stepped out into the delicious sunshine. My fellow tourists busied themselves at a gift shop where they bought t-shirts, chewy candies, postcards, and pens. When everyone was back on the bus, we made our way to another section of the DMZ. We were dropped in front of an ugly concrete building that offered a spectacular view of the grassy border. North Korea was right before me—just a mile away. It looked beautiful. There were low mountains and a handsome village called Kijŏng-dong, which was deliberately built so that those on the South could marvel at the high technology and luxury of the North. Although the greatest scientific minds in North Korea are said to call this place home, I saw no people on the streets, and no cars when I looked through a viewfinder. A loudspeaker blared happy music and an energetic female yelled something in Korean. Propaganda, no doubt, about the glory of Dear Leader and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Or perhaps the woman was insulting the Republic of Korea for allowing itself to be westernized. Seoul as a puppet.The village of Kijŏng-dong (기정동) has a cluster of brightly painted apartment blocks with roofs coated in a striking blue. Next to the viewfinder I was using, an information board stated in Korean, English, and Chinese that the buildings are shells. There are no floors, no glass in the windows, and the interior lights are remotely clicked on and off in order to create the illusion that people are enjoying rich lives.I had a sudden urge to walk the empty streets of this fake village. What if I could float across the DMZ and touch down on an unused sidewalk? What if I could look into empty shopfronts and linger before restaurants that don't exist? I imagined strolling into the hollowed shell of an apartment block and looking up. Lights would hover in a web of electrical cord. Kijŏng-dong, it occurred to me, is just a massive ghost town. It is a place, but not a place. It's an illusion of architecture that both exists, and does not exist. The most noticeable thing about Kijŏng-dong, however, is a massive flagpole—one of the tallest in the world—and for a long moment I watched the flag of North Korea gently curl and ripple on the wind.One thing that is not an illusion: The border between these two Koreas has existed since 1953. And because a peace treaty has yet to be signed, a long stalemate continues—it is uneasy territory where war and peace are both at home. The DMZ is a buffer, a gap, a chasm between two different ideologies. This slender strip of land is simultaneously owned, and not owned, by two nations. It is the only place where North and South Korea are united. They meet in negative space. So it is with all borders, though. They are created and maintained in the head.My eyes refocused on the DMZ, which has been overgrown by nature. A red-crowned crane flapped up from marshy grassland. It soared in a graceful circle, riding the air currents.I'm back in Northern Ireland. It's the summer of 1994 and there are distant rumblings of peace. In fact, for the first time in my life, it feels like the Troubles might actually slip into the history books. That's the hope anyway but, as I move my white Volkswagen around West Belfast, it's hard to ignore the military helicopter whumping overhead or the armored British assault vehicles blocking side streets. Soldiers walk with guns at the ready. They patrol in slow circles, scanning the rooftops for threats behind them. One small concession has been made by the British: Troops have been ordered to wear berets instead of helmets. It's a sign of budding trust.I'm here because I'm studying for my master's degree in Irish Writing at Queen's University Belfast. To my ongoing surprise, I'm one of only two Americans accepted for the program. Queen's is one of the best institutions of higher learning in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and it's a mixture of Protestant and Catholic students. It exists in a “neutral” area of Belfast that is something of a no-man's-land full of coffee shops and bookstores. The paramilitary groups decided long ago that violence against students made for bad international press, so Queen's is an island of uneasy calm. The university works hard to make both sides feel welcome and, notably, neither the British nor Irish flag is flown on campus. The dorms are integrated and politics are usually set aside for talk of movies, football, and study. At night, we shuffle off to either the Botanic or the Eglantine—two popular pubs with the endearing nicknames of “The Bot” and “The Eg.” I find myself avoiding these pubs, to drink quietly with new friends before fireplaces. We open bottles of gin and slice up lemons.When I'm in the library reading articles on the poetry of Seamus Heaney, I can't help but stare out at Land Rovers—those armored police vehicles of the Royal Ulster Constabulary—and I realize that my true education is really outside, on the streets. It didn't take me long to learn which areas of Belfast are Protestant or Catholic, British or Irish. There isn't a border that cuts through Belfast and cleaves it in two. No, it's far more complicated than that. The two communities butt against each other in a hodgepodge patchwork. Your neighborhood says which side you might be on. Turf Lodge. Falls. Shankill. Tiger's Bay. Sandy Row. Ardoyne. They mean little to outsiders, but in the tight borderlands of Belfast they are little signs. Hints. Tells. They are roadmaps that whisper for a fight.Northern Ireland was created in 1921 when most of the island wanted independence from the United Kingdom. The Catholics in the south wanted out, but the Protestants in the north wanted to remain part of Britain. Hadn't they just fought in the Great War of 1914–1918 and hadn't they sacrificed an entire generation of men in the Battle of the Somme? Didn't they love the king and have a right to stay in their own country? As a result, guns were hidden in homes and there were threats of civil war if they were cut loose by London.The British solved this problem by creating a border. The six counties of Fermanagh, Armagh, Tyrone, Londonderry, Antrim, and Down would remain part of the United Kingdom, and the rest of Ireland would become a free state. Maps were taken out, dotted lines were drawn, and the idea of Northern Ireland was born. The land just needed to be carved up and the two groups separated. Really, what could go wrong?Over the 20th century, Northern Ireland became a template for dividing up a nation that had different ideological beliefs. Soon there were East and West Germany. India and Pakistan. North and South Korea. North and South Vietnam. Checkpoints were built. DMZs were manned. Flags were raised.Back in Belfast, I turn the wheel of my white Volkswagen toward the Peace Wall. Such a hopeful name, so Orwellian in nature, it's an oxymoron of concrete and razor wire if ever there was one. The Peace Wall splits a Catholic community from a Protestant community, and at sundown, the gates are locked. The street is sealed shut and cameras monitor the dark. Perhaps not surprisingly, it has long been a flashpoint of violence. Just a few nights ago, a young man was shot against a brick wall. And it was less than a mile from here that the Shankill Butchers hunted for Catholics in the 1970s. They roamed the streets, sniffing for the enemy, and when they found someone, they stuffed them into a car and brought them to the “Romper Room.” In this secret place behind a pub, men were tortured with knives until, finally, a bullet was put into the backs of their heads. Twenty-three were murdered like this until the leader of the Shankill Butchers, Lenny Murphy, was mowed down in a hail of bullets by the IRA.Also not far away is where a kneecapping took place. A man in his twenties was taken to an alley and a bullet was put into each of his knees—he had been dealing drugs and the warlords of the Troubles didn't want him ruining the bodies of potential foot soldiers. At midnight, he was ordered to lie on the ground, two pistols were leveled, and his kneecaps were shattered into jagged bony chips. The rest of his life would be spent in a wheelchair. Rumor had it that he showed up for this punishment as if it were some kind of strange appointment—if he wasn't there on time, the IRA said they would kill him. It was a clear warning to others in the neighborhood. Do not sell drugs.I turned a corner and the Peace Wall was suddenly in front of me. It was spattered with paint bombs: pink, green, and blue. The splashed graffiti of a riot. The metal doors were dented from thrown bricks and stones. Belfast confetti, as it's sometimes called. All of this—the riots, the barricades, the car bombs, the murders—were part of what the British called “An acceptable level of violence.”I entered the mouth of the wall when a soldier waved me in with the snout of his gun. I slalomed though a chicane of concrete barriers, turning the wheel to the left and right, as I made my way to the middle. The design prevented drivers from ramming through at high speed and it also meant that if my car was rigged with a bomb the explosion would be contained. Huge metal walls climbed on either side of me, and although I couldn't see a sniper, I knew someone had my head in the crosshairs of a scope. I slowed—then stopped—when soldiers stood before me. One of them made a circular motion for me to roll down my window. I kept both hands on the steering wheel.“Pop the boot,” he said, nodding to the back of the car.I reached for the latch, slowly, and went back to holding the wheel at 10 and 2. I stared ahead, unmoving and unblinking. Did this, I wonder, make me look more or less suspicious?Before the Good Friday Agreement brought peace to Northern Ireland in 1998, the Irish Republican Army was the best equipped illegal military organization in the world. Cash flowed into the coffers of the IRA from Boston, New York, Chicago, and St. Paul. Without American dollars, the IRA would never have been able to wage a war against the British. Bucks bought bullets.I looked in the rearview mirror in the hopes of seeing the soldier who had ordered me to roll down my window. He appeared next to me and snapped his fingers a few times. “Look at me.”He couldn't be more than eighteen, and his beret was so new it still had a starched tag jutting out from the side.“Driver's license,” he said, holding out a hand.I dug in my back pocket and pulled out my Minnesota license. He studied it, squinted hard, and sized me up. “Says you're American.”“I am.”“And your name's Patrick?”I knew what this meant and wanted to head it off quickly. For him, not only I had just come from an area of Belfast that had plenty of IRA members, but I was an American with a supremely Catholic name. Bucks and bullets.“I go to Queen's,” I said. “I'm an international student.”“Why're youse here though,” he said in a thick Yorkshire accent. He nodded to West Belfast.I shrugged. “Just driving around.”“Just driving around,” he grunted in disbelief. “In West Belfast.” He studied the back seat of my car for a long moment. “And so, Patrick from America, what is it you study at Queen's?”“Irish Writing.”Other soldiers began to close in on the Volkswagen, and in my side mirror I saw one of them slide a pole beneath the car. No doubt it had a mirror on it to see if explosives were hidden in the chassis.“Wait here,” the soldier said.There was a sharp squawk on a walkie-talkie and a military helicopter thumped closer. As I sat there—with my head in the + of a sniper's scope—my palms began to sweat. Even though it felt like I was on an international border, I wasn't. My university flat was just fifteen minutes away, the Titanic was built just up the road, and if I turned around I could see the yellow cube of City Hospital where my Nana died of pulmonary fibrosis one night in the summer of 1980. The sleepy village of my ancestors was just twenty-miles up the motorway. All of this makes me belong in Northern Ireland, and yet I can never fully belong. Not really. I'm Irish-American, and that little hyphen in my identity acts as a border crossing between two different cultures. I am neither fully one, nor the other.When the soldier returned, he held out my driver's license. “Best not to be out by yourself. Dangerous for a student, aye?”Another soldier, who looked as if his family were originally from Pakistan or India, waved me through. I put the car in D and touched the accelerator, carefully. Within seconds I was on the Shankill Road. Very Protestant. Very loyal. Very Orange. No patience for the Pope here. British flags fluttered from rowhouses and bunting sagged from lampposts. An old woman shumbled down the sidewalk with a bag of groceries and teenagers smoked on the corner. An Israeli flag flew above the street—just like Catholics sometimes fly the Palestinian flag. It's a question of narrative and who owns the soil. Settlers and the indigenous both claim this land, each marking what is theirs. The magnetism of a flag offers a sense of self, as well as a clear sense of who is the enemy.As I drove on, the radio murmured of peace. To make it happen though, lines would have to be crossed. Walls would have to be torn down.In the distance were mountains claimed by different forefathers, and gunpowder clouds of rain.I didn't plan on going to Bethlehem, but when the opportunity came along I immediately said yes. When else would I find myself in the city of Christ's birth?At the time, I was in Jerusalem doing research at Yad Vashem, which is one of the most important centers of Holocaust remembrance in the world. While there, I saw the original blueprints of the gas chambers and ovens at Auschwitz, as well as signs for the death camps of Treblinka and Sobibór. The bricks and lampposts from the Warsaw Ghetto are on display along with typewriters that had been used by the SS. There are empty gas canisters, eyeglasses, and Star of David armbands. There are books and pistols and pain. Seeing such things is necessary for the kind of novels I write, and yet there's only so much I can absorb before I need to turn away, step into the sunshine, and breathe the air of the present century. It seemed like a good idea to give myself permission to take a day off to see where one of the most famous Jews in history had been born. It would be a healing balm. A focusing on life instead of death.And so, I found myself going to the Church of the Nativity.I hadn't really considered the geography of Israel that much before I arrived. After all, I had no plans to venture away from Jerusalem so I didn't really consider how close Nazareth, Haifa, or the Sea of Galilee might be from my hotel. It surprised me to learn that Bethlehem was just six miles away—fifteen minutes by bus. To get there, we would have to go beyond the walls and enter Palestine. I say “we” because I was going with a former student who was teaching English as a foreign language at the time. After graduating from the university where I teach, Courtney packed her bags and put her degree to good use. When we met for dinner one night near Damascus Gate, she asked if I wanted to see Bethlehem the next day, and I liked the idea of her showing me around. Our roles would reverse: She would be the teacher and I would be the student. Tall, red-headed, and quick with razor wit, Courtney had made Jerusalem her home and it was clear that she loved the place. She was living with a Muslim host family and I was impressed with how much Arabic she had learned in just a few months. As we made our way into the West Bank on a clattering bus, she pointed at barricades and how two different religions coexist—uneasily—on the same land.The Church of the Nativity was built in 330, and it has been a site of holy devotion ever since. Palm trees towered up from the main door and buses baked in a parking lot. Courtney had a long stride and it was hard for me to keep up. She pointed at a car and mentioned that residents in the West Bank have yellow license plates so they're immediately recognizable to the police.“If you live in Jerusalem, it's white.”It reminded me that license plates in Belfast have the letter “Z” for the same reason. It makes it easier for authorities in England to tell if a car is from Northern Ireland. It's a small whispering of blood and belonging. A snitching of danger.The line inside the church was long. So long, in fact, that I asked Courtney if she really wanted to wait an hour to see the spot where Christ was born. She flapped her hand dismissively and said, “When else are you going to see it?”As we inched along, I thanked her and promised to pay for lunch. Her whole face broke into a smile and she talked with rising excitement about taking me to her favorite restaurant in the West Bank—a place called Afteem that specializes in hummus. “You've got to try their lemonade with mint,” Courtney said with a happy groan. “So good.”We talked about food, which made us talk about home, which made us talk about work, which made us talk about why I was visiting Jerusalem in the first place. I asked her what it was like to navigate a maze of security checkpoints every day. She mentioned that two days ago a rocket attack had happened in Tel Aviv. The day before that, a group of men stormed the grounds of the Dome of the Rock and threatened to set fire to a gate. Tear gas was used. Rocks were thrown. Jerusalem confetti, I thought.After an hour, we had finally inched toward a stone stairway that would bring us down to where Christ was born. Huge candles were suspended in braziers and there was so much incense that the air above us was smoky—sunlight lanced through a high window, like the finger of God pointing to his origin of flesh and bone.To our left, a man began yelling. At first it was hard to tell if he was speaking Hebrew or Arabic. A huge group of tourists followed him and it became clear that he was speaking English. They were Americans. The baseball hats and sunglasses and t-shirts with sport teams gave them away. Texas Rangers. Miami Heat. New York Yankees. They had lanyards around their necks and they looked old, retired.“Hurry up,” he yelled. “They'll be closing soon.”He moved toward a rope barricade and unclipped a portion of it. We had been waiting over on hour on this side of the rope—inching ever closer to the altar downstairs—while those on the other side weren't allowed into the holy space below.“Hurry,” the tour guide yelled, pushing his flock into our group.This caused a great deal of angry muttering.“What are you doing?” a woman behind me demanded. She stopped fanning herself with a brochure. “I said . . . what are you doing?”“The line starts back there,” another man pointed. “You go back now,” he said in accent I couldn't place.The tour guide kept pushing his group into ours. Within seconds we were so tightly packed that our arms were pinned to our sides. A flare of anger rose in my chest and I stared daggers at the man. Others were doing the same. He ignored this and reclipped the rope barricade.“Push along,” he yelled to his group. “The holy site of Jesus's birth is down those stairs. Move along now. Push.”The Americans squirmed with embarrassment and seemed to ask each other with their eyes if they should obey or not. After a moment, they began to push forward as they had been told. They saw no need to wait. And although they had crossed the barrier, they clearly didn't see themselves as part of our group.The balding tour guide held up a stubby red umbrella. Sweat glistened on his forehead. “Follow me!” he yelled. “This way.”A man with a blonde goatee to my right yelled out a signal word. “STOP!” he shouted. He then added, “What are you doing?” He had a French accent and neatly clipped hair. A pair of sunglasses was tucked into his shirt pocket. “You! Fat man,” he yelled. “What are you doing with these peoples? We have been waiting one hour, and you do this? Are you thinking you are better than us?”The insult and the sharp tone made the tour guide forget his charge. His eyes darted from face to face. He was twenty feet away and, for a moment, I thought about saying something to this man who had crossed a line of decorum.“What gives you the right to jump before us?” the Frenchman asked again. “We have waited for one hour and—”The tour guide zeroed in on the blonde-goateed man and waved his umbrella like a truncheon. “Do not make me come over there. You maybe want some punches?” He raised a clenched fist.I glanced at Courtney and wondered what to do.The fat tour guide moved toward us. “You want some punches?” he asked again with fury on his tongue.A woman next to the Frenchman leaned in and whispered something into his ear. There was a scowl, and then, “What is wrong with you, fat man? You want to fight in a church? What tour company you work with?”The balding man stopped. He looked left and right as if calculating the risks. Eventually, he simply pointed a stiff finger. “Lucky for you, we are in a hurry.”Murmuring rippled through the nave and an uneasy calm followed. The Americans continued to funnel down the marble steps and we followed. It was so crowded that I worried about someone behind me tripping—it would make me loose balance and I'd fall domino-like into the person a step below me. Just one shove, and scores of people would tumble down the stairs.The tour guide stood before a low altar and barked out orders. “Quick now. Two at a time.”Candles shimmered near an ornate gold screen and heavy red curtains hung from the stone walls. I was only a few yards from where God had become a child, where the supernatural had become natural, where a boy had been tugged into the world. Bethlehem is a type of portal between heaven and earth. Perhaps it will be like this for us all, one day, when we leave our own bodies. Perhaps we will find ourselves elsewhere, banded in light.An old couple in front of me kneeled down and touched a silver star that marked the spot where Mary had delivered a god.“Two at a time,” the fat man yelled at me.I ignored him and kneeled down in a space I claimed as my own. I bent low, touching the warm star, and in that moment I half hoped for some wild joy. Instead, there was nothing. Deep down, I knew this wasn't really the precise spot where Jesus of Nazareth had entered the world, but it hardly mattered. It was the idea of where the messiah had been born. Somewhere—perhaps here—perhaps not—a boy had come into the world and he would preach a radical theology of love. Whether he was divine or not didn't matter much to me. His words, his ideas of clemency, loving the stranger, welcoming the sick, and loving your enemies—these matter more. He was a storyteller and a paragon of morality. He crossed lines. This simple man would reach out to lepers, prostitutes, and the downfallen. He would extend his hand and say, simply, welcome. And for this he was killed.The tour guide barked for me to move, but I did not. I was in no hurry, and I knew that I wouldn't be coming back to this place ever again. It was just a stone altar, just a place. Worth seeing once, perhaps, but once was enough. A strange peace washed over me, and when I stood up I walked past the guide who had caused so much bitterness.“Two at a time!” he shouted at those behind me.Courtney was up ahead. We climbed the ancient stone stairs and stepped into warm light.“Afteem?” she asked.The restaurant was in a basement, the tables were tightly packed together, and a Palestinian flag hung from the ceiling. We had plates of masabacha, falafel with shatta, shawarma, and a pickle dish I didn't catch the name of. We went through two pitchers of lemonade with mint, and it was all delicious. More hummus. More pitas. More olives. When it was time to roll our stuffed bellies out of Afteem, we moved down a busy street. Arabic was painted onto walls and in the distance were rolling brown hills. Jesus would have known this landscape well. He would have enjoyed meals of masabacha and cucumber. Wine and falafel would have been on his table. Lamb too.In order to get on a bus that would take us back to Jerusalem, we had to pass through a heavily fortified gate. Courtney mentioned earlier that I needed my passport in order to be waved through a bulletproof turnstile. “It's possible we'll be questioned or searched,” she had warned me. “We might be detained.”And so, we walked through waves of July heat. We passed a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a corner grocery store. Palms trees sagged in the humid air. In the distance, a siren. Perhaps it was the police? It reminded me of a saying I once heard: In the city you ignore the siren and listen for the gunshot; in the country, you ignore the gunshot and listen for the siren.We turned a corner and saw a huge wall of creamy stone slabs. It looked like the Berlin Wall but much, much taller. Barbed wire crowned the top and machine guns tufted from turrets. A watchtower was badly scorched from a recent firebomb. There was also graffiti, and much of it was by Banksy. I had seen his work in London and Brighton over the years, but this was the first time I had seen any outside of the United Kingdom. He uses stencils to create quick layered images with spray paint. Rats feature prominently in this work, along with sharp social commentary. No one knows who Banksy is—his identity has been kept a secret for decades—and he has made the West Bank a type of outdoor studio for his guerilla art.We strolled past graffiti