Pyongyang, North Korea ? A simple question about Kim Jong Il’s health provokes a torrent of angry, broken English.

“It’s a pack of lies,” declared Oh Keum Suk. The 26-year-old North Korean tour guide jumped from his seat at a coffee shop and in an exaggerated motion stormed away. Then he turned on his heels to chew out the foreigner who dared ask about reports that the North Korean leader had suffered a stroke.

“Kim Jong Il is my father, my grandfather, my family. How do you talk about my family that way?”

The topic is so taboo that a North Korean interpreter refused to translate a question about Kim’s health, her eyes open wide and stricken, her mouth clamped shut.

One of the few North Koreans who said he wouldn’t mind answering questions, Choe Jung Hun of the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, dismissed any suggestion of a problem with a wave of his hand.

“There is no problem. … He is well. He is just working hard, that is all,” Choe said.

All seems well

Kim Jong Il has been conspicuously absent from public life for the past month. He was a no-show at celebrations Sept. 9 marking North Korea’s 60th anniversary, the first time the leader has missed such an important occasion. He didn’t appear at last week’s opening of the Pyongyang Film Festival.

Reports originating in South Korea and Japan that he suffered a stroke and is now partially incapacitated have appeared everywhere except inside North Korea itself, where all foreign publications and broadcasts are prohibited.

The state-controlled newspapers here carry daily accounts of the leader’s activities, mostly receiving gifts and congratulations for the anniversary.

There is no public indication of anything amiss. If anything, Pyongyang appears more festive than usual, with the film festival under way and nightly performances at Kim Il Sung stadium of North Korea’s famous mass gymnastics with their casts of 100,000.

It appears that ordinary people haven’t heard the reports of Kim’s illness, and that the few who have heard through their contact with foreigners are in a state of denial.

The official line of the ruling Workers’ Party is that the reports of ill health are a Western conspiracy, “spread by evil people who want to break up unity between the Koreas,” as Foreign Ministry official Hyon Hak Bong told reporters last week.

Kim’s possible setback

South Korean intelligence has told members of the national assembly that Kim, 66, is recovering from a stroke suffered in mid-August, and that he is able to perform simple tasks such as brushing his teeth. Other reports suggest the damage probably is permanent and could impair his ability to govern.

Foreigners attending the 60th anniversary celebrations say that initial preparations appeared to anticipate an appearance by the leader, but that it was canceled at the last minute – suggesting that he might have suffered a setback.

“They (the North Koreans) don’t talk about it, but they must be very worried,” said a Western diplomat in Beijing.

‘Sun god of human history’

Kim Jong Il, who inherited power after the death of his father, Kim Il Sung, in 1994, is part of a dynasty that practically defines North Korea.

“Without President Kim Jong Il, we can’t think about our country,” said tour guide Oh, in a calmer moment. “Marshal Kim Jong Il is the sun god of human history . … He is greater than George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, all put together.”

He then demanded: “How can you know more than me? I live in Pyongyang, like Marshal Kim Jong Il. I should know.”

Sacred images

North Koreans are taught to treat images of the Kims, father and son, as sacred. Portraits of the two are mandatory in all North Korean homes and offices, and people who fail to dust them regularly are fined. Foreign visitors are advised upon their arrival in Pyongyang not to throw away any North Korean newspapers, lest they despoil a photo of the leaders.

“Don’t tear or crumble the newspaper. Don’t throw it in a dust bin. Don’t wrap something with it or use it for some other purpose,” warned guide Gil Hyun Ah, who said offenders would have to write formal letters of apology before being permitted to leave the country.

No clear successor

The same prohibitions against discussing Kim’s health goes into the matter of the succession. It is equally unthinkable to talk about what would happen when he dies.

Kim has three sons, who are all considered unlikely successors. The two youngest sons are in their 20s. The oldest, 37-year-old Kim Jong-nam, was discredited after being arrested in 2002 trying to sneak into Japan on a fake passport in order to visit Disneyland.

That puts North Korea in a far more precarious situation than it was in 1994 when Kim Il Sung died at 82. Kim Jong Il by that time had been designated the successor for more than two decades and functionally was running the government.

This time, North Koreans are facing a future both unknowable and unspeakable. At times, the fear seems palpable. But it is articulated only obliquely. Out of earshot of other North Koreans, a young woman shyly asked: “You’ve heard about our problems, haven’t you?”