by Adam Johnson
She rose from the table.
Jun Do rose, too.
“I apologize for disturbing you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have told the story. But you must believe that I have looked into the eyes of sharks, seen them stupid with death. When you’re near them, an arm’s length away, their eyes flick white. They’ll turn sideways and lift their heads when they want a better look before they bite you. I didn’t feel the teeth in my flesh, but it was icy and electric when they hit bone. The blood, I could smell it in the water. I know the feeling of seeing a boy right in front of you, and he is about to be gone. You suddenly understand you’ll never see him again. I’ve heard the last gibberish a person says. When a person slips into the water, right in front of you, the disbelief of it, that never leaves you. And the artifacts people leave behind, a shaving brush, a pair of shoes, how dumb they seem—you can handle them in your fingers, stare at them all you want, they don’t mean anything without the person.” Jun Do was shaking, now. “I’ve held the widow, his widow, with these arms as she sang nursery rhymes to him, wherever he was.”
Later, Jun Do was in his room. He was looking up all the Korean names in Texas, the hundreds of Kims and Lees, and he was almost to Paks and Parks when the dog on his bed suddenly stood.
Wanda was at the door—she knocked lightly twice, then opened.
“I drive a Volvo,” she said from the threshold. “It’s a hand-me-down from my dad. When I was a kid, he worked security at the port. He always had a maritime scanner going, so he could know if a captain was in trouble. I have one, too, and I turn it on when I can’t sleep.”
Jun Do just stared at her. The dog lay down again.
“I found out some things about you,” Wanda said. “Like who you really are.” She shrugged. “I thought it only fair to share a few things about me.”
“Whatever your file says about me,” Jun Do told her, “it’s wrong. I don’t hurt people anymore. That’s the last thing I want to do.” How did she have a file on him anyway, he wondered, when Pyongyang couldn’t even get his info right.
“I put your wife Sun Moon into the computer, and you popped right up, Commander Ga.” She studied him for a reaction, and when he gave none, she said, “Minister of Prison Mines, holder of the Golden Belt in taekwondo, champion against Kimura in Japan, father of two, winner of the Crimson Star for unnamed acts of heroism, and so on. There were no current photos, so I hope you don’t mind me uploading the pictures I took.”
Jun Do closed the phone book.
“You’ve made a mistake,” he said. “And you must never call me that in front of the others.”
“Commander Ga,” Wanda said, like she was savoring the name. She held up her phone. “There’s an app that predicts the orbit of the Space Station,” she said. “It will be passing over Texas in eight minutes.”
He followed her outside, to the edge of the desert. The Milky Way reeled above them, the smell of creosote and dry granite sweeping down from the mountains. When a coyote called, the dog moved between them, its tail twitching with excitement, the three of them waiting for another coyote to respond.
“Tommy,” Jun Do said. “He’s the one who speaks Korean, right?”
“Yes,” Wanda said. “The Navy stationed him there for ten years.”
They cupped their hands and stared at the sky, scanning for the arc of the satellite.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Wanda said. “What’s the Minister of Prison Mines doing here in Texas? Who’s the other man claiming to be a minister?”
“None of this is his fault. He just does what he’s told. You’ve got to understand—where he’s from, if they say you’re an orphan, then you’re an orphan. If they tell you to go down a hole, well, you’re suddenly a guy who goes down holes. If they tell you to hurt people, then it begins.”
“Hurt people?”
“I mean if they tell him to go to Texas to tell a story, suddenly he’s nobody but that.”
“I believe you,” she said. “I’m trying to understand.”
Wanda was the first to spot the International Space Station, diamond bright and racing across the sky. Jun Do tracked it, as amazed as when the Captain first indicated it above the sea.
“You’re not looking to defect, are you?” she asked. “If you were looking to defect, that would cause a lot of problems, trust me. It could be done, mind you. I’m not saying it’s impossible.”
“Dr. Song, the Minister,” Jun Do said. “You know what would happen to them. I could never do that to them.”
“Of course,” she said.
Far in the distance, too many kilometers away to gauge, a lightning storm clung to the horizon. Still, its flashes were enough to silhouette closer mountain ranges and give hints of others even farther yet. The strobe of one bolt gave them a glimpse of a dark owl, caught mid-flight, as it silently hunted through the tall, needley trees.
Wanda turned to him. “Do you feel free?” she asked. She cocked her head. “Do you know what free feels like?”
How to explain his country to her, he wondered. How to explain that leaving its confines to sail upon the Sea of Japan—that was being free. Or that as a boy, sneaking from the smelter floor for an hour to run with other boys in the slag heaps, even though there were guards everywhere, because there were guards everywhere—that was the purest freedom. How to make someone understand that the scorch-water they made from the rice burned to the bottom of the pot tasted better than any Texas lemonade?
“Are there labor camps here?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Mandatory marriages, forced-criticism sessions, loudspeakers?”
She shook her head.
“Then I’m not sure I could ever feel free here,” he said.
“What am I supposed to do with that?” Wanda asked. She seemed almost mad at him. “That doesn’t help me understand anything.”
“When you’re in my country,” he said, “everything makes simple, clear sense. It’s the most straightforward place on earth.”
She looked out toward the desert.
Jun Do said, “Your father was a tunnel rat, yes?”
“It was my uncle,” she said.
“Okay, your uncle. Most people walking around—they don’t think about being alive. But when your uncle was about to enter an enemy tunnel, I bet he was thinking about nothing but that. And when he made it out, he probably felt more alive than we’ll ever feel, the most alive in the world, and that until the next tunnel, nothing could touch him, he was invincible. You ask him if he felt more alive here or over there.”
“I know what you’re saying and all,” Wanda said. “When I was a kid, he was always telling hair-raisers about the tunnels, like it was no big deal. But when he visits Dad’s now, and you get up in the middle of the night for a glass of water, there he is, wide awake in the kitchen, just standing there, staring into the sink. That’s not invincible. That’s not wishing you were back in Vietnam where you felt alive. That’s wishing you’d never even seen the place. Think about what that does to your freedom metaphor.”
Jun Do gave a look of sad recognition. “I know this dream your uncle has,” he said. “The one that woke him and made him walk to the kitchen.”
“Trust me,” she said. “You don’t know my uncle.”
Jun Do nodded. “Fair enough,” he said.
She stared at him, almost vexed again.
“Okay,” she said. “Go on and tell it.”
“I’m just trying to help you understand him.”
“Tell it,” she said.
“When a tunnel would collapse,” Jun Do said.
“In the prison mines?”
“That’s right,” he said. “When a tunnel would collapse, in a mine, we’d have to go dig men out. Their eyeballs would be flat and caked. And their mouths—they were always wide open and filled with dirt. That’s what you couldn’t stand to look at, a throat packed like that, the tongue grubbed and brown. It was our greatest fear, ending up with
everyone standing around in a circle, staring at the panic of your last moment. So your uncle, when you find him at the sink late at night, it means he’s had the dream where you breathe the dirt. In the dream, everything’s dark. You’re holding your breath, holding it, and when you can’t hold it anymore, when you’re about to breathe the dirt—that’s when you wake, gasping. I have to wash my face after that dream. For a while I do nothing but breathe, but it seems like I’ll never get my air back.”
Wanda studied him a moment.
She said, “I’m going to give you something, okay?”
She handed him a small camera that fit in his palm. He’d seen one like it in Japan.
“Take my picture,” she said. “Just point it and press the button.”
He held the camera up in the dark. There was a little screen upon which he could barely see her outline. Then there was a flash.
Wanda reached in her pocket, and removed a bright red cell phone. When she held it up, the picture he’d taken of her was on its screen. “These were made for Iraq,” she said. “I give them to locals, people who are friendly. When they think I need to see something, they take a picture of it. The picture goes to a satellite, then only to me. The camera has no memory, so it doesn’t store the pictures. No one could ever find out what you took a picture of or where it went.”
“What do you want me to take a picture of?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Anything. It’s up to you. If there’s ever something you’d like to show me, that would help me understand your country, just push this button.”
He looked around, as if trying to decide what in this dark world he would photograph.
“Don’t be scared of it,” she said and leaned in close to him. “Reach out and take our picture,” she told him.
He could feel her shouldering into him, her arm around his back.
He took the picture, then looked at it on the screen.
“Was I supposed to smile?” he asked, handing it to her.
She looked at the picture. “How intimate,” she said, and laughed. “You could loosen up a bit, yeah. A smile wouldn’t hurt.”
“ ‘Intimate,’ ” he said. “I don’t know this word.”
“You know, close,” she said. “When two people share everything, when there are no secrets between them.”
He looked at the picture. “Intimate,” he said.
That night, in his sleep, Jun Do heard the orphan Bo Song. Because he had no hearing, Bo Song was one of the loudest boys when he tried to speak, and in his sleep he was even worse, clamoring on through the night in the slaw of his deaf-talk. Jun Do gave him a bunk in the hall, where the cold stupefied most boys—there’d be some teeth chattering for a while, and then silence. But not Bo Song—it only made him talk louder in his sleep. Tonight, Jun Do could hear him, whimpering, whining, and in this dream, Jun Do somehow began to understand the deaf boy. His stray sounds started to form words, and though Jun Do couldn’t quite make the words into sentences, he knew that Bo Song was trying to tell him the truth about something. There was a grand and terrible truth, and just as the orphan’s words started to make sense, just as the deaf boy was finally making himself heard, Jun Do woke.
He opened his eyes to see the muzzle of the dog, who’d crept up to share the pillow with him. Jun Do could see that behind the eyelid, the dog’s eye was rolling and twitching with each whimper of its own bad dream. Reaching out, Jun Do stroked the dog’s fur, calming it, and the whines and whimpers ceased.
Jun Do pulled on pants and his new white shirt. Barefoot, he made his way to Dr. Song’s room, which was empty, save for a packed travel suitcase waiting at the foot of the bed.
The kitchen was empty, as was the dining room.
Out in the corral was where Jun Do found him, sitting at a wooden picnic table. There was a midnight wind. Clouds flashed across a newly risen moon. Dr. Song had changed back into a suit and a tie.
“The CIA woman came to see me,” Jun Do said.
Dr. Song didn’t respond. He was staring at the fire pit—its coals still gave off warmth, and when the wind eddied away fresh ashes, the pit throbbed pink.
“You know what she asked me?” Jun Do said. “She asked if I felt free.”
On the table was Dr. Song’s cowboy hat, his hand keeping it from blowing away.
“And what did you tell our spunky American gal?” he asked.
“The truth,” Jun Do said.
Dr. Song nodded.
His face seemed puffy somehow, his eyes almost drooped shut with age.
“Was it a success?” Jun Do asked. “Did you get what you came for, whatever it was that you needed?”
“Did I get what I needed?” Dr. Song asked himself. “I have a car and a driver and an apartment on Moranbong Hill. My wife, when I had her, was love itself. I have seen the white nights in Moscow and toured the Forbidden City. I have lectured at Kim Il Sung University. I have raced a Jet Ski with the Dear Leader in a cold mountain lake, and I have witnessed ten thousand women tumble in unison at the Arirang Festival. Now I have tasted Texas barbecue.”
That kind of talk gave Jun Do the willies.
“Is there something you need to tell me, Dr. Song?” he asked.
Dr. Song fingered the crest of his hat. “I have outlasted everyone,” he said. “My colleagues, my friends, I have seen them sent to farm communes and mining camps, and some just went away. So many predicaments we faced. Every fix, every pickle. Yet here I am, old Dr. Song.” He gave Jun Do a fatherly pat on the leg. “Not bad for a war orphan.”
Jun Do still felt a bit like he was in the dream, that he was being told something important in a language almost understood. He looked over to see his dog had followed him out and was now watching from a distance, its coat seeming to change pattern with shifts in the wind.
“At this moment,” Dr. Song said, “the sun is high over Pyongyang—still, we must try to get some sleep.” He stood and placed the hat upon his head. Walking stiffly away, he added, “In the movies about Texas, they call it shut-eye.”
In the morning, there were no big good-byes. Pilar filled a basket with muffins and fruit for their plane trip, and everyone gathered out front where the Senator and Tommy had pulled up the Thunderbird and the Mustang. Dr. Song translated the Minister’s farewell wishes, which were really invitations for them all to visit him soon in Pyongyang, especially Pilar, who would be hard-pressed to return from a worker’s paradise if she did.
To all, Dr. Song offered only a bow.
Jun Do approached Wanda. She wore a jogging top, so he could see the power of her chest and shoulders. Her hair, for the first time, was down, framing her face.
“Happy trails to you,” he said to her. “That’s a Texas good-bye, no?”
“Yes,” she said, smiling. “Do you know the response? It’s ‘Until we meet again.’ ”
The Senator’s wife held a puppy, her fingertips moving through the soft folds of its skin.
She considered Jun Do for a long moment.
He said, “Thank you for tending to my wound.”
“I’ve taken an oath,” she said. “To assist all in medical need.”
“I know you don’t believe my story,” he said.
“I believe you come from a land of suffering,” she said. Her voice was measured and resonant, the way she’d spoken when she’d talked about the Bible. “I also believe your wife is a good woman, one that only needs a friend. Everyone tells me I’m not allowed to be that friend to her.” She kissed the puppy, then held it out to Jun Do. “So this is the best I can do.”
“A heartfelt gesture,” Dr. Song said, smiling. “Unfortunately, canines are not legal in Pyongyang.”
She pressed the dog into Jun Do’s hands. “Don’t listen to him, or his rules,” she said. “Think of your wife. Find a way.”
Jun Do accepted the dog.
“The Catahoula is bred to herd,” she said. “So when that puppy’s mad at you, he’ll bite at your heels. And when he wants to s
how his love, he’ll bite at your heels.”
“We have a plane to catch,” Dr. Song said.
“We call him Brando,” the Senator’s wife said. “But you can name him whatever you like.”
“Brando?”
“Yes,” she said. “See this mark on his haunch? That’s where a brand would go.”
“A brand?”
“A brand’s a permanent mark that says something’s yours.”
“Like a tattoo?”
She nodded. “Like your tattoo.”
“Then Brando it is.”
The Minister began walking toward the Thunderbird, but the Senator stopped him.
“No,” the Senator said. He pointed at Jun Do. “Him.”
Jun Do looked to Wanda, who gave a nodding shrug. Tommy had his arms crossed and wore a satisfied smile.
Jun Do took a seat in the coupe. The Senator joined him, their shoulders almost touching, and slowly they began moving down the gravel road.
“We thought the talkative one was manipulating the dumb one,” the Senator said. He shook his head. “Turns out you were the one all along. Is there any end to you people? And controlling him with yeses and nos at the end of sentences. How dumb do you think we are? I know you’ve got the backward-nation card to play and the I’ll-get-thrown-in-a-gulag excuse. But coming all this way to pretend to be a nobody? Why tell that cockamamie shark story? And what the hell does a minister of prison mines do, exactly?”
The Senator’s accent was getting stronger as he spoke, and though Jun Do couldn’t catch all the words, he knew exactly what the Senator was saying.
“I can explain,” Jun Do said.
“Oh, I’m listening,” the Senator told him.
“It’s true,” Jun Do said. “The Minister is not really a minister.”
“So who is he?”
“Dr. Song’s driver.”
The Senator laughed in disbelief. “Christ a’mighty,” he said. “Did you even consider playing level with us? You don’t want us to board your fishing boats, that’s something to talk about. We sit down in the same room. We suggest that you maybe don’t use fishing boats to smuggle Taepodong missile parts, counterfeit currency, heroin, and so on. Then we reach an agreement. Instead I’m wasting my time talking to the chumps, while you were what, getting a gander?”