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presenter’s smile and remembering Gi’s comment, the wave broke through and she began laughing in earnest.
    A nervous tension filled the room. No one knew how the presenter would respond to such an insolent outburst. There was no punishment that was beyond her reach. It could be as light as a mild rebuke; or, if she were wanting to make an example, could be as heavy as—
    It was better not to think about that.
    To Gi’s relief—she was becoming increasingly afraid of the outcome—the forced smile on the presenter’s face softened and her eyes relaxed. She even began to chuckle.
    “Young lady, your laughter is contagious,” she said. “I don’t see enough of that.”
    Obediently, as if on cue, the other seamstresses started laughing. It came timidly and forced, but then picked up speed, like a boulder rolling down the side of a mountain. Faces turned red and tears glistened on cheeks. It seemed strange to Gi that everyone laughed, and yet nobody knew why. Perhaps it was only relief.
    After a while the laughter began to die down, but some of the women forced their laughter to continue in spite of the natural lull, as if to show off their dedication. As they did this, more and more women forced their laughter, in a chain reaction, so that what was a room filled with hearty laughter at nothing in particular was now a room of forced and compulsory laughter upheld for self-preservation. Everyone was looking around the room, wanting to be neither the first nor the last one to stop. No one wanted to take that chance.
    In an attempt to end the cycle, an elderly seamstress stood up and walked to the framed photograph of the Dear Leader on the wall. She kneeled and called out to the picture in gratitude. Then another woman did the same. Then another. Only after prostrating oneself to the Dear Leader was it truly safe to stop laughing. Now that it had started, it would not stop until every person in the room had gone to the photo of the Dear Leader. Not even the presenter could interrupt a person’s display of devotion without fear of punishment. Once it had started, anyone not seen doing it would be considered suspicious. People had disappeared for as much.
    “This is going to be a long night,” Il-sun said to Gi.

6
    T HE ORPHANAGE MISTRESS OPENED the box slowly—restraint was a quality she prized in herself. It was just an ordinary box, like so many others she had seen. She could guess at its contents: several kilos of rice, some kind of dry beans, perhaps a few onions, canned vegetables if she was lucky, maybe some aging root vegetables, and possibly a little bit of soap. Whatever it was would be enough to keep them all from starving. It was the extra thing in the box, the more personal inclusion, whether or not it was even there, that caused her chest to pound. She scolded herself: The food is more important. For the girls.
    She removed bags of rice and beans from the box and set them on the counter. She was pleased to find several large carrots, only slightly wilted, and two whole cabbages with more green leaves than brown. There were about a dozen tin cans, all with the labels torn off, presumably to hide their foreign origin. If anyone bothered inspecting the cans closely, they could see that they were not manufactured in Chosun; but nobody would be checking them. There was no way to know what was inside the cans until she opened them, but that hardly mattered. There was a small stack of forged ration coupons, neatly banded together. She would have to check them against her legitimate ones to see if she could risk using them, but on first glance they looked passable. For a moment her breath faltered. The box was empty. She brought her hand to her cheek in an unconscious gesture to make sure her face was still there, and not a plate of glass. It was only a small comfort when her fingertips met warm flesh.
    Then she saw it. It would have been easy to miss the flat package, wrapped in plain brown paper the same color