The Orphan Master's Son

by Adam Johnson

  Nobody ever dropped bombs on us, but we knew what Commander Ga was talking about. Once we had to go north to get the biography of a guard at Prison 14-18. All day we rode north in the back of a crow, slush spraying up from the floorboards, our boots freezing solid, the whole time wondering if we were really going to interrogate a subject or if that was just what we’d been told to lure us to prison without a fuss. As the cold froze the turds inside our asses, we could only wonder if the Pubyok hadn’t finally pulled the lever on us.

  Commander Ga went on, “Because I was new, I was housed next to the infirmary, where people complained all night. One old man in there was a particular pain in the ass. He wasn’t productive because his hands no longer worked. People might have covered for him, but he was hated—one of his eyes was cloudy, and he only knew how to accuse and demand. All night the guy would moan an endless series of questions. Who are you? he’d call to the night. Why are you here? Why won’t you answer? Week after week, I’d wonder when the blood truck would finally come to shut him up. But then I started to think about his questions. Why was I there? What was my crime? Eventually, I began to answer him. Why won’t you confess? he’d call out, and through my harmonica barracks, I’d shout, I’m ready to confess, I’ll tell everything. These conversations made people nervous, and then one night, I got a visit from Mongnan. She was the oldest woman in the camp, and she’d long ago lost her hips and breasts to hunger. Her hair was cut like a man’s, and she kept her palms wrapped with strips of cloth.”

  Commander Ga continued with his story of how he and Mongnan sneaked out of the barracks, past the mud room and water barrels, and if we perhaps didn’t say it, we all must have been thinking that the name Mongnan meant “Magnolia,” the grandest white flower of them all. That’s what our subjects say they see when the autopilot takes them to the apex of pain—a wintry mountaintop, where from the frost a lone white blossom opens for them. No matter how their bodies contort, it is the stillness of this image they remember. It couldn’t be so bad, could it? A single afternoon of pain … and then the past is behind you, every shortcoming and failure is gone, every last bitter mouthful of it.

  “Outside, past my rising breath,” Commander Ga continued, “I asked Mongnan where all the guards had gone. She pointed toward the bright lights of the administration buildings. The Minister of Prison Mines must be coming tomorrow, she said. I’ve seen this before. They’ll be up all night cooking the books.

  “So? I asked her.

  “The Minister is coming, she said. That’s why they’ve worked us so hard, that’s why all the weak have been thrown in the infirmary. She pointed to the warden’s complex, every light burning bright. Look at all the electricity they’re using, she said. Listen to that poor generator. The only way they can light this whole place is with the electric fence off.

  “So what, escape? I asked. There’s nowhere to run.

  “Oh, we’ll all die here, she said. Rest assured. But it won’t be tonight.

  “And suddenly she was moving across the yard, stiff-spined but quick in the dark. I caught up with her at the fence, where we squatted. The fence was two fences, really, a parallel line of concrete posts strung with cables on brown ceramic insulators. Inside was a stretch of no-man’s-land, teeming with wild ginger and radishes that nobody lived to steal.

  “She moved to reach through the wires. Wait, I said. Shouldn’t we test it? But Mongnan reached under the fence and pulled out two radishes, crisp and cold, which we ate on the spot. Then we began digging the wild ginger that grew there. All the old ladies in camp got placed on grave detail—they buried the bodies where they fell, just deep enough that the rain wouldn’t seep them out. And you could always tell ginger plants whose tap root had penetrated a corpse: the blooms were large, iridescent yellow, and it was hard to jerk loose a plant whose roots had hooked a rib below.

  “When our pockets could hold no more, we ate another radish and I could feel it cleaning my teeth. Ah, the joys of a scarcity distribution, Mongnan said and finished the radish—root, stem, and blossom. This place is a lecture on supply and demand. Here is my blackboard, she said, looking to the night sky. Then she put a hand on the electric fence. And here is my final exam.”

  In the cafeteria, Q-Kee jumped up. “Wait,” she said. “Is this Li Mongnan, the professor who was denounced, along with her students?”

  Commander Ga stopped his story. “A professor?” he asked us. “What was her subject?”

  It was a tremendous gaffe. The Pubyok just shook their heads. We had just given our subject more information than he’d given us. We dismissed both interns and asked Commander Ga to please continue.

  “Were her students transported?” Ga asked. “Had Mongnan outlived them at Prison 33?”

  “Please continue,” we requested. “When you’re done, we’ll answer one question.”

  Commander Ga took a moment to digest this. Then he nodded and continued. “There was a pond in which the guards raised trout to feed to their families. The fish were counted every morning, and if one went missing, the whole camp would starve. I followed Mongnan to the low wall of the circular pool, where she crouched and reached over to snatch a fish from the black water. It took a couple tries, but she had a net rigged from a hoop of wire, and the fabric wrapped around Mongnan’s hands gave her a good grip. She held a trout behind the pectoral fins—so healthy, so perfectly alive. Pinch it here, just up from the tail, she said. Then massage it here, behind the belly. When you feel the egg pocket, squeeze. Mongnan lifted the fish high and then milked an apricot-colored stream of eggs into her mouth. She tossed the fish back.

  “Then it was my turn. Mongnan snatched another fish and showed me the slit that marked it as female. Pinch hard, she cautioned, or you’ll get fish shit. I squeezed the fish, and a shot of eggs sprayed my face, surprisingly warm. Gelatinous, briny, unmistakably alive, I smelled it on my cheeks, then, wiping, licked my palms. With practice, I got the knack. We milked the eggs of a dozen fish, stars crossing the sky as we sat there, stunned.

  “Why are you helping me? I asked her.

  “I am an old woman, she said. That’s what old women do.

  “Yes, but why me?

  “Mongnan rubbed her hands in the dirt, to get the smell off. You need it, she said. The winter took ten kilos from you. You don’t have that to give again.

  “I’m asking, why do you care?

  “Have you heard of Prison Number 9?

  “I’ve heard of it.

  “It’s their most profitable prison mine—five guards run a prison of fifteen hundred. They just stand at the gate and never go inside. The whole prison is in the mine, there’s no barracks, no kitchen, no infirmary—

  “I said I’ve heard of it, I told her. Are you saying we should feel lucky we’re in a nice prison?

  “Mongnan stood. I heard there was a fire in Prison 9, she said. The guards wouldn’t open the gates to let the prisoners out, so the smoke killed everyone inside.

  “I nodded at the gravity of her story, but said, You’re not answering my question.

  “That minister is coming here tomorrow to inspect our mine. Think how his life is going right now. Think how much shit he’s been eating. She grabbed me by the shoulder. You can’t be talking to your hands and feet at self-criticism. You can’t be throwing the guards stupid looks. You’ve got to stop debating the old man in the infirmary.

  “Okay, I said.

  “And the answer to your question is this: why I’m helping you is none of your business.

  “We made our way past the latrine benches and leaped the piers of the gravity sewer. There was a pallet where people who died in the night were stacked, but now it was empty. As we passed it, Mongnan said, My tripod gets to sleep in tomorrow. Still and clear, the night smelled of birch trees, which a detail of old men had been cutting into cane strips. Finally we came to the cistern and the ox that turned its great pump wheel. It had kneeled down on a bed of birch bark, very pungent. When the beast heard Mongnan�
�s voice, it stood. She turned to me, whispering, The fish eggs, that’s once a year. I can show you where the tadpoles arrive in the streams, and when the trees by the west tower give their sap. There are other such tricks, but you can’t count on them. There are only two constant sources of nourishment in the camp. One I’ll show you later, when things get difficult, for it is quite distasteful. Here is the other.

  “She touched the beast on the nose, then patted the black plates between its horns. She fed him a piece of wild ginger—it breathed sharply through its nostrils, then chewed sideways. From deep in her pockets, Mongnan produced a medium-sized jar. An old man showed me this, she said. The oldest man in the camp at the time. He must have been sixty, maybe more, but very fit. It was a cave-in that killed him, not hunger or weakness. He was strong when he went.

  “She ducked under the ox, already hanging long and red. With a tight grip, Mongnan began stroking him. The ox smelled my hands, looking for more ginger, and I looked into its wet, black eyes. There was a man a few years back, Mongnan said, from under the ox. He had a little razor, and he would make cuts in the beast’s hide, to drink the blood when it leaked. That was a different animal. The beast didn’t complain, but the blood trickled out and froze, which the guards noticed, and that was the end of the little man. I photographed his body after the punishment. I went through all his clothes looking for that razor, but I never found it.

  “The ox snorted—its eyes were wide and uncertain, and it swung its head from side to side as if looking for something. Then it closed its eyes, and soon Mongnan emerged with a jar, nearly full and steaming. Mongnan drank half at one go and handed it to me. I tried to take a sip, but when a little rope of it went down my throat, the rest hung on, and it all swam down at once. The ox knelt again. You’ll be strong for three days, she said.

  “We looked at the lights glowing in the guard buildings. We looked toward China. This regime will come to an end, she said. I have studied every angle, and it cannot last. One day all the guards will run away—they’ll head that way, for the border. There will be disbelief, then confusion, then chaos, and finally a vacuum. You must have a plan ready. Act before the vacuum is filled.

  “We began to make our way back toward the barracks, our stomachs full, our pockets full. When we heard the dying man again, we shook our heads.

  “Why won’t I tell them what they want to know? the dying man moaned, his voice reverberating through the barracks. What am I doing here? What is my crime?

  “Allow me, Mongnan said. She cupped her hands and moaned back, Your crime is disturbing the peace.

  “Oblivious, the dying man moaned again. Who am I?

  “Mongnan made her voice low and moaned, You are Duc Dan, the camp’s pain in the ass. Please die quietly. Die in silence, and I promise to take a flattering last photo of you.”

  In the cafeteria, one of the Pubyoks pounded the table. “Enough,” he shouted. “Enough of this.”

  Commander Ga stopped his story.

  The old interrogator knotted his hands. “Don’t you know a lie when you hear one?” he asked us. “Can’t you see the way this subject is playing you? He’s talking about Kim Duc Dan, trying to make you think he’s in prison. Interrogators don’t go to prison, that’s impossible.”

  Another old-timer stood. “Duc Dan’s retired,” he said. “You all went to his going-away party. He moved to the beach in Wonsan. He’s not in jail, that’s a lie that he’s in jail. He’s painting seashells right now. You all saw the brochure he had.”

  Commander Ga said, “I haven’t gotten to the part about Commander Ga yet. Don’t you want to hear the story of our first encounter?”

  The first interrogator ignored him. “Interrogators don’t go to prison,” he said. “Hell, Duc Dan probably interrogated half the people in Prison 33, that’s where this parasite got Duc Dan’s name. Tell us where you heard this name. Tell us how you know about his milky eye. Confess to your lie. Why won’t you tell us the truth?”

  The Pubyok with the shoe stood. He had jagged scars in his neat gray hair. “Enough storytime,” he said, and looked at our team with a disgust that left no doubt about his thoughts on our methods. Then he turned toward Ga. “Enough fairy tales,” he said. “Tell us what you did with the actress’s corpse, or by the blood of Inchon we’ll make your fingernails tell us.”

  The look on Commander Ga’s face made the old men grab him. They poured piping hot pu-erh in his facial wounds before dragging him off, leaving us to race to our office to begin filling out the forms that we hoped would get him back.

  IT WAS MIDNIGHT before Division 42 approved our emergency memos. With our interrogation override authorization in hand, we went down into the torture wing, a place our team rarely went, to rescue Commander Ga. We had the interns check the hot boxes, even though the red lights were off. We checked the sense-dep cells and the time-out tanks, where subjects got some first aid and a chance to catch their breath. We lifted the floor hatch and descended down the ladders into the sump. There were many lost souls down there, all of them too far gone to be Ga, but still, we checked the names on their ankle bracelets and lifted their heads long enough to shine a light in their slow-to-dilate eyes. Finally, with trepidation, we checked a room the old-timers called the shop. It was dark when we swung open the door—there was only the occasional winking glint of a slowly turning power tool, suspended from the ceiling by its yellow pneumatic hose. When we threw the power switch, the air-recirc system started up and the banks of fluorescents flashed to life. The room—spotless, sterile—contained only chrome, marble, and the white clouds of our own breath.

  Where we found Commander Ga was in his own room. While we were searching, he’d been replaced in his bed, head propped up on pillows. Someone had put him in his nightshirt. Here, he fixed the far wall with a quizzical stare. We took his vital signs and checked him for wounds, even though it was clear what had happened. On his forehead and scalp were pressure marks from the screws to the halo, a device that kept a subject from injuring his neck during the cranial administration of electricity.

  We poured a paper cup of water and tried to give him a drink—it just dribbled out.

  “Commander Ga,” we said. “Are you okay?”

  He looked up, as if he’d only now noticed us, even though we’d just taken his pulse, temp, and BP. “This is my bed?” he asked us. Then his eyes floated around the room, landing on his bedside table. “That is my peaches?”

  “Did you tell them,” we asked, “what happened to the actress?”

  With a vague smile, he looked from each of us to the next, as if searching for the person who could translate the question into a language he understood.

  We all shook our heads in disgust, then sat on the edges of Commander Ga’s bed for a smoke, passing the ashtray above his outline in the sheets. The Pubyok had gotten what they needed to know out of him, and now there’d be no biography, no relationship, no victory for the thinking man. Our second in command was a man I thought of as Leonardo because he was baby-faced like the actor in Titanic. I’d seen Leonardo’s real name in his file once, but I’ve never called him by either name. Leonardo set the ashtray on Commander Ga’s stomach and said, “I bet they’ll shoot him in front of the Grand People’s Study House.”

  “No,” I said. “That’s too official. They’ll probably shoot him in the market under Yanggakdo Bridge—that’ll move the story by rumor.”

  Leonardo said, “If it turns out he did the unthinkable to her, then he’ll just disappear. Nobody’ll find so much as a little toe.”

  “If he’d been the real Commander Ga,” Jujack said, “a famous person, a yangban, they’d fill the soccer stadium for it.”

  Commander Ga lay in the middle of us, sleepy as a rubella baby.

  Q-Kee smoked like a singer, with the very tips of her fingers. Judging by the faraway look on her face, I figured she was warily pondering that unthinkable. Instead, she said, “I wonder what his question for us would have been?”

&
nbsp; Jujack looked at Ga’s tattoo, ghosting through his nightshirt. “He must have loved her,” he said. “Nobody gets a tattoo like that unless it’s love.”

  We weren’t crime detectives or anything, but we’d been in the game long enough to know the kind of mayhem that came from the fount of love.

  I said, “The rumors are that he stripped Sun Moon naked before he killed her. Is that love?”

  When Leonardo cast his eyes down to our subject, you could see his long eyelashes. “I just wanted to find out his real name,” he said.

  I stubbed my cigarette out and rose. “I guess it’s time to congratulate our betters and find out the resting place of our national actress.”

  The Pubyok lounge was two floors below us. When I knocked on the door, a rare silence followed. All those guys seemed to do was play table tennis, sing karaoke, and wing their throwing knives around. Finally, Sarge opened the door.

  “It looks like you got your man,” I told him. “The halo never lies.”

  Behind Sarge, a couple of Pubyok sat at a table, staring at their hands.

  “Go ahead and gloat,” I said. “I’m just curious about the guy’s story. I just want to know his name.”

  “He didn’t tell us,” Sarge said.

  Sarge didn’t look so good. I understood he must have been under a lot of pressure with such a high-profile subject, and it was easy to forget that Sarge was in his seventies. But his color was off. It didn’t look like he’d been sleeping. “No worries,” I told him. “We’ll piece all the details together from the crime scene. With the actress in hand, we’ll know everything about this guy.”

  “He wouldn’t talk,” Sarge said. “He didn’t give us anything.”

  I stared at Sarge in disbelief.

  “We put the halo on him,” Sarge said. “But he went to a place, some faraway place, we couldn’t reach.”

  I nodded as it all sank in. Then I took a big breath.

  “You understand that Ga’s ours now,” I told him. “You had your try.”