The Orphan Master's Son

by Adam Johnson

  Of course, citizens, he lied: there’s no such thing as a night market!

  What’s important is that no one looked up when Ga returned through the window. All kept working as he brushed wet leaves from his uniform. In the South, workers would be tittyweeping that someone had broken the “rules” by giving away government property. But here, discipline reigns, and people know that nothing happens without a purpose, that no task goes unnoticed, that if a man gives an old woman in an oak tree a nuclear detector, he does so because the Dear Leader wishes him to. That if there are two Commander Gas or one or none, it is as the Dear Leader desires.

  Walking toward his destiny, Commander Ga caught the eye of Comrade Buc, who threw him the thumbs-up sign. Some people may find Comrade Buc humorous or even jaunty. Sure, he has an adorable scar splitting his brow that, owing to his wife’s inability to sew, no longer connected. But remember that the thumbs-up was the signal the Yanks gave before dropping their payloads upon the innocents of North Korea. Just watch the movies, and you’ll see the smiles, the thumbs-up, and then the bombs falling on Mother Korea. Watch Sneak Attack, starring Ga’s own lovely wife. Watch The Last Day of March, which dramatizes the day in 1951 in which the Americans dropped a hundred and twenty thousand tons of napalm, leaving only three buildings standing in Pyongyang. So give Buc a thumbs-down and pay no more attention to him! His name, regrettably, will be heard from time to time, but he is no longer a character in this story and you are to henceforth ignore him.

  And of Commander Ga? However lacking, however feeble you have judged his character, know that this is a story of growth and redemption, one in which enlightenment is gained by the lowliest of figures. Let this story be an inspiration when dealing with the weak-minded who share your communal housing blocks and the selfish who use all the soap in your group bathing wells. Know that change is achievable and that happy endings do come, for this story promises to have the happiest ending you will ever hear.

  An elevator was waiting for Commander Ga. Inside was a beautiful woman in a white-and-navy uniform with blue-tinted sunglasses. She did not speak. The elevator had no controls, and she made no movement. How it descended, and whether she operated it, Ga couldn’t tell, but soon they were dropping deep under Pyongyang. When the doors opened, he found himself in a glorious room, where gifts from other world leaders adorned the walls. There were rhino-horn bookends from Robert Mugabe, Supreme President of Zimbabwe; a black-lacquered longevity mask from Guy de Greves, Foreign Minister of Haiti; and a silver “Happy Birthday” platter signed to the Dear Leader by every member of Myanmar’s Central Junta.

  Suddenly, there was a bright light. Emerging from this was the Dear Leader, so confident, so tall, striding toward Commander Ga, and Commander Ga felt all his earthly worries fall away as a sense of well-being overtook him. It was as if his very being were cupped within the Dear Leader’s own protective hands, and he felt only an urge to serve the glorious nation that had spawned such confidence in him.

  Commander Ga bowed deeply and with total supplication.

  The Dear Leader clasped him firmly and spoke, “Please, enough bowing, my good citizen. It has been too long, Ga, too long. Your nation needs you now. I have a delicious bit of mischief planned for our American friends. Are you willing to help?”

  Why, citizens, did the Dear Leader show no distress at the appearance of this imposter? What is the Dear Leader’s plan? Will the extended sadness of the actress Sun Moon be lifted? Find out tomorrow, citizens, when we deliver the next installment of this year’s Best North Korean Story!

  THE ELEVATOR plummeted deep into Bunker 13, where Commander Ga would meet the Dear Leader. Ga felt a sharp pain in his eardrums and his body felt limp, as if he were free-falling back into a prison mine. Seeing Comrade Buc—his smile, his thumbs-up—had opened a void in Commander Ga between the person he used to be and the person he’d become. Comrade Buc was the only person who existed on both sides of Commander Ga’s void, who knew both the young hero who’d gone to Texas and the new husband of Sun Moon, the most dangerous man in Pyongyang. Now Ga felt rattled. He felt newly aware that he wasn’t invincible, that it wasn’t destiny in control of him but danger.

  When the elevator doors opened, deep in Bunker 13, a team of elite bodyguards gave Commander Ga an eleven-point body search, though it was nothing worse than what he’d experienced each time he’d returned from Japan. The room was white and cold. They took a cup of urine from him and a clipping of hair. He barely got his clothes back on before he heard the clacking of heels growing louder in the hall outside as guards saluted the approach of the Dear Leader. Then the door simply opened, and in stepped Kim Jong Il. He wore a gray jumpsuit and designer glasses that amplified the playfulness in his eyes.

  “There you are, Ga,” he said. “We missed you.”

  Commander Ga gave a long, deep bow, fulfilling his first promise to Sun Moon.

  The Dear Leader smiled. “That wasn’t so hard,” he said. “That didn’t cost you anything, did it?” He placed a hand on Ga’s shoulder and looked up into his eyes. “But the bow must come in public. Isn’t that what I told you?”

  Commander Ga said, “Can’t a man practice?”

  “There’s the Ga I love,” the Dear Leader said. On the table was a mounted Siberian fox posed mid-pounce above a white vole, a gift of Constantine Dorosov, mayor of Vladivostok. The Dear Leader looked as though he might admire the fur of the fox, but instead he stroked the vole, its teeth bared against the threat above. “I should still be cross with you, Ga,” he said. “I can’t even count your wrongdoings. You let our most productive prison burn, along with fifteen hundred of our best inmates. I’m still trying to explain to the Chinese Premier your episode at that bathhouse in Shenyang. My driver of twenty years, he’s still in a coma. The new one drives fine, but I miss the old one—his loyalty had been tested many times.” Here, the Dear Leader returned to him. With a hand on the shoulder, the Dear Leader pressed Ga to his knees, so the Dear Leader now towered above. “And what you said to me at the opera, that cannot be unsaid. Your head would be the only way to restore the injury. And what leader wouldn’t wish you gone, to disappear forever for all the trouble you cause? Do you forget that I gave you Sun Moon? Still, I have a soft spot for your antics. Yes, I will give you one more chance. Do you accept a new mission from me?”

  Commander Ga looked down and nodded.

  “Up, then,” the Dear Leader said. “Dust yourself off, grab hold of your dignity again.” He indicated a platter from the table. “Dried tiger meat?” he asked. “Do eat, and pocket some for that son of yours—that boy could use some tiger. When you eat of the tiger, you become like the tiger. That’s what they say.”

  Commander Ga took a piece—it was hard and tasted sweet.

  “I can’t eat the stuff,” the Dear Leader said. “It’s the teriyaki flavor, I think. The Burmese have sent this as a gift. You know my collected works are being published in Rangoon? You must write your works, Commander. There will be volumes on taekwondo, I hope.” He clapped Commander Ga on the back. “We sure have missed your taekwondo.”

  The Dear Leader led Commander Ga out of the room and down a long white hallway that slowly serpentined back and forth—should the Yanks attack, they’d get no line of fire longer than twenty meters. The tunnels under the DMZ slowly curved the same way—otherwise a single South Korean private, shooting through a mile of darkness, could counter an entire invasion.

  They passed many doors, and rather than offices or residences, they seemed to house the Dear Leader’s many ongoing projects. “I have a good feeling about this mission,” the Dear Leader said. “When was the last time we embarked on one together?”

  “It has been too long to remember,” Commander Ga said.

  “Eat, eat,” the Dear Leader said as they strolled. “It’s true what they say—your prison work has taken a toll on you. We must get your strength back. But you still have the Ga good looks, yes? And that beautiful wife, I’m sure you’re glad
to have her back. Such a fine actress—I’ll have to compose a new movie role for her.”

  From the flat ping of his footsteps echoing back, Ga knew hundreds of meters of rock were above him. You could learn to perceive such depth. In the prison mines, you could feel the ghostly vibration of ore carts moving through other tunnels. You couldn’t exactly hear the roto-hammers biting in the other shafts, but you could feel them in your teeth. And when there was a blast, you could tell its location in the mountain by the way dust was slapped off the walls.

  “I have called you here,” the Dear Leader said as they walked, “because the Americans will be visiting soon, and they must be dealt a blow, the kind that hits under the ribs and takes the breath away but leaves no visible mark. Are you up for this task?”

  “Does the ox not yearn for the yoke when the people are hungry?”

  The Dear Leader laughed. “This prison work has done wonders for your sense of humor,” he said. “So tense you used to be, so serious. All those spontaneous taekwondo lessons you delivered!”

  “I’m a new man,” Ga said.

  “Ha,” the Dear Leader said. “If only more people visited the prisons.”

  The Dear Leader stopped before a door, considered it, then moved on to the next. Here he knocked, and with the buzz of an electric bolt, the door opened. The room was small and white. Only boxes were stacked inside.

  “I know you keep close tabs on the prisons, Ga,” the Dear Leader said, ushering him in. “And here is our problem. In Prison 33, there was a certain inmate, a soldier from an orphan unit. Legally, he was a hero. He has gone missing, and we need his expertise. Perhaps you met him and perhaps he shared some of his thoughts with you.”

  “Gone missing?”

  “Yes, I know—it’s embarrassing, no? The Warden has already paid for this. In the future, this won’t be a problem, as we have a new machine that can find anyone, anywhere. It’s a master computer, if you will. Remind me to show it to you.”

  “So, who is this soldier?”

  The Dear Leader started to sort through boxes, opening some, tossing others aside, looking for something. One box was filled with barbecue tools, Ga observed. Another was filled with South Korean Bibles. “The orphan soldier? An average citizen, I suppose,” the Dear Leader said. “A nobody from Chongjin. Ever visit that place?”

  “Never had that pleasure, Dear Leader.”

  “Me, either. Anyway, this soldier, he went on a trip to Texas—had some security skills, language talents, and so on. The mission was to retrieve something the Americans took from me. The Americans, it seems, had no intention of returning this item. Instead, they subjected my diplomatic team to a thousand humiliations, and when the Americans visit us, I will subject them to a thousand in return. To do this right, I must know exact details of this visit to Texas. The orphan soldier, he is the only one who knows these.”

  “Certainly there were other diplomats on the visit. Why not ask them?”

  “Sadly, they are no longer reachable,” the Dear Leader said. “The man I speak of, he is currently the only one in our nation who’s been to America.”

  Then the Dear Leader found what he was looking for—a large revolver. He hefted it around in the direction of Commander Ga.

  “Ah, I suddenly remember,” Ga said, looking at the pistol. “The orphan soldier. A lean, good-looking man, very smart and humorous. Yes, he was certainly in Prison 33.”

  “So you know him?”

  “Yes, we often spoke late into the night. We were like brothers, he told me everything.”

  The Dear Leader handed Ga the revolver. “Do you recognize this?”

  “It looks just like the revolver the orphan soldier described, the one they used in Texas to shoot cans off the fence. A forty-five-caliber Smith & Wesson, I believe.”

  “You do know him—now we are getting somewhere. But look closer, this revolver is North Korean. It was constructed by our own engineers and is actually a forty-six-caliber, a little bigger, a little more powerful than the American model—do you think it will embarrass them?”

  Inspecting it, Commander Ga could see that the parts had been hand-milled on a lathe—on the barrel and cylinder were notches the smith had used to align the action. “It most certainly will, Dear Leader. I would only add that the American revolver, as my good friend the orphan soldier described it, had little grooves on the hammer, and the grips were not pearl, but carved antler of deer.”

  “Ah,” the Dear Leader said. “This is exactly the kind of thing we’re looking for, exactly.” Then, from another box, he produced an Old West—style gun belt, hand-tooled and low-slung, and this he placed himself around Commander Ga’s waist. “There are no bullets yet,” the Dear Leader said. “These the engineers are at pains to produce, one shell at a time. For now, wear the gun, get the feel. Yes, the Americans are going to see that we can make their guns, only bigger and more powerful. We are going to serve them American biscuits, but they will discover that Korean corn is more hearty, that honey from Korean bees is more sweet. Yes, they will trim my lawn and they will ingest whatever foul cocktail I concoct, and you, Commander Ga, you will help us construct an entire Potemkin Texas, right here in Pyongyang.”

  “But Dear Lea—”

  “The Americans,” he said with a flash of anger, “will sleep with the dogs from the Central Zoo!”

  Commander Ga waited a moment. When he was sure the Dear Leader felt he had been heard and understood, he said, “Yes, Dear Leader. Just tell me when the Americans visit.”

  “Whenever we want,” the Dear Leader said. “We haven’t actually contacted them yet.”

  “My good friend the orphan soldier, once when I visited his prison, he told me that the Americans were very reluctant to make contact with us.”

  “Oh, the Americans are coming,” the Dear Leader said. “They’re going to deliver what they took from me. They’re going to get humiliated. And they’re going home with nothing.”

  “How?” Ga asked. “How will you bring them here?”

  Now the Dear Leader smiled. “That’s the best part,” he said.

  He led Ga to the end of the curving hall, where there was a staircase. They took metal stairs down several floors, with the Dear Leader trying to hide a limp. Soon, seeps of water ran down the walls, and the metal rail became rusted and loose. When Commander Ga leaned over the rail to see how far down the steps went, there was nothing but darkness and echoes. The Dear Leader at last stopped on a landing and opened a door to a new hall, this one much different. Here, each door they passed had a small, reinforced window and a swing-arm lock. Commander Ga knew a prison when he saw one.

  “Seems pretty lonely down here,” he said.

  “Don’t feel that way,” the Dear Leader said without looking back. “You’ve got me.”

  “What about you?” Ga asked. “You come down here alone?”

  The Dear Leader stopped before a door and pulled out a solitary key. He looked at Commander Ga and smiled. “I’m never alone,” he said, and opened the door.

  Inside the room was a tall, skinny woman, her face hidden by shaggy dark hair. Before her were spread many books, and she was writing by the light of a lamp whose cord disappeared into a hole in the cement ceiling. Silent, she gazed up at them.

  “Who is she?” Commander Ga asked.

  “Ask her yourself. She speaks English,” the Dear Leader said, then turned to the woman. “You bad girl,” he told her. He had a grand smile on his face. “Bad, bad, bad girl.”

  Ga approached and crouched down, so they were at eye level. “Who are you?” he asked in English.

  She eyed the gun on his hip and shook her head, as if revealing anything might bring harm upon her.

  Here, Ga saw that the books before the woman were English versions of the eleven-volume Selected Works of Kim Jong Il, which she was transcribing into notebooks, stacks of them, word for word. He cocked his head and saw she was transcribing a tenet from volume five, called On the Art of the Cinema.
/>
  “ ‘The Actress cannot play a role,’ ” Ga read. “ ‘She must, in an act of martyrdom, sacrifice herself to become the character.’ ”

  The Dear Leader smiled in approval at the sound of his own words. “She’s quite the pupil,” he said.

  The Dear Leader motioned for her to take a break. She set her pencil down and began rubbing her hands. This caught Commander Ga’s attention. He leaned in close.

  “Will you show me your hands?” he asked.

  He extended his own hands, palms up, to demonstrate.

  Slowly, she revealed them. Her hands were thick with gray, pitted calluses, rows of them, right to the pads of her fingertips. Commander Ga closed his eyes and nodded in recognition at the thousands of hours at the oars that had made her hands this way.

  He turned to the Dear Leader. “How?” he asked. “Where did you find her?”

  “A fishing boat picked her up,” the Dear Leader said. “It was just her alone in her rowboat, no friend in sight. She’d done a bad thing to her friend, a very bad thing. The captain rescued her and set the boat ablaze.” With some delight, the Dear Leader pointed a finger of naughtiness at the girl. “Bad girl, bad,” he said. “But we forgive her. Yes, what’s past is past. Such things happen, it can’t be helped. Do you think the Americans will visit now? Do you think the Senator will soon regret making my ambassadors eat without cutlery, outside, among dogs?”

  “We’ll have to get many specific items,” Commander Ga said. “If our American welcome party is to succeed, I’ll need the help of Comrade Buc.”