by Adam Johnson
Ga’s eyes were red, his hair dusted with dirt.
“What have I managed?” he asked.
Comrade Buc gestured at the car, the house. “This,” he said. “What you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?”
“There’s no name for it,” Buc said. “There’s no name because no one’s ever done it before.”
The rest of the day, Sun Moon locked herself in the bedroom with the children, and there was the silence that comes only from sleep. Even the afternoon news on the loudspeaker did not wake them. Down in the tunnel, it was just Commander Ga and his dog, whose breath was foul from eating a raw onion, executing trick after trick.
Finally, when the lowering sun was rust-colored and waxen, amber-bright off the river, they emerged. Sun Moon wore a formal choson-ot the color of platinum, so exquisite the silk shone like crushed diamonds in one flash, then dark as lamp smudge the next. Seed pearls trimmed the goreum. While she prepared the tea, the children positioned themselves on elevated pallets to play their instruments. The girl began with her gayageum, obviously an antique from the days of court. Wrists erect, she plucked in the old sanjo way. The boy tried his best to accompany on the taegum. His lungs were not quite strong enough to play the demanding flute, and because his hands were too small to finger the high notes, he sang them instead.
Sun Moon kneeled before Commander Ga and began the Japanese tea ritual. She spoke as she removed the tea from an alderwood box and infused it in a bronze bowl. “These items,” she said, indicating the tray, the cups, the whisk, the ladle. “Do not be fooled by them. They are not real. They are only props from my last movie, Comfort Woman. Sadly, it never premiered.” She steeped the tea, making sure it turned clockwise in a bamboo cup. “In the movie, I must serve afternoon tea to the Japanese officers who will afterward make me their business for the rest of the evening.”
He asked, “Am I the occupying force in this story?”
She turned his cup slowly in her hands, awaiting the proper infusion. Before handing it to him, she cast her breath once upon the tea, rippling the surface. The cape of her choson-ot spread in a shimmer around her. She passed him his tea and then bowed, down to the wooden floor, the full form of her body displaying itself.
Her cheek against the wood, she said, “It was only a movie.”
While Sun Moon retrieved his finest uniform, Ga drank and listened. In the sideways light, the windows to the west gave the illusion that he could see all the way to Nampo and the Bay of Korea. The song was elegant and clean, and even the children’s off notes made the music pleasingly spontaneous. Sun Moon dressed him, and then standing, pinned the appropriate medals to his chest. “This one,” she said, “came from the Dear Leader himself.”
“What was it for?”
She shrugged.
“Pin it at the top,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows at his wisdom and complied. “And this one was presented by General Guk for unspecified acts of bravery.”
Her attention and beauty had distracted him. He forgot who he was and his situation. “Do you think,” he asked, “that I am brave and unspecified?”
She buttoned the breast pocket of his uniform and gave a final pull on his tie.
“I do not know,” she said, “if you are a friend of my husband or an enemy. But you are a man, and you must promise to protect my children. What almost happened today, it can’t happen again.”
He pointed at a large medal she had not pinned on him. It was a ruby star with the golden flame of Juche behind it. “What’s that one?” he asked.
“Please,” she said. “Just promise me.”
He nodded, and he did not leave her eyes.
“That medal was for defeating Kimura in Japan,” she said. “Though really it was for not defecting afterward. The medal was just part of a package.”
“A package of what?”
“This house,” she said. “Your position, other things.”
“Defect? Who would leave you?”
“That is a good question,” she said. “But at the time, my hand was not yet Commander Ga’s.”
“So I beat Kimura, huh? Go ahead and pin it on me.”
“No,” she said.
Ga nodded, trusting her judgment.
“Should I wear the pistol?” he asked.
She shook her head.
Before leaving, they stopped to regard, behind a casing of glass and illuminated by a spotlight, the Golden Belt. The display was positioned to be the first thing a visitor noticed when entering the house. “My husband,” Sun Moon said … but did not finish the thought.
Her mood lightened in the car. The sun was going down but the sky was still pale blue. Ga had driven only trucks in the military, but he got the hang of it, despite how the Mercedes engine jammed the little Lada gearbox. The interior, though, was beautiful—mahogany dash, mother-of-pearl gauges. At first, Sun Moon had wished to sit in the backseat by herself, but he talked her into the front, saying that in America the ladies drive with their men. “Do you like this car, the Mustang?” he asked her. “The Americans make the best cars. This one is quite revered there.”
“I know this car,” she said. “I have been in it before.”
“I doubt that,” Ga said. They were winding down the mountain, driving just fast enough to elude the dust cloud behind them. “This is surely the only Mustang in Pyongyang. The Dear Leader had it custom built to embarrass the Americans, to show them we could make their own car, only better, more powerful.”
Sun Moon ran her hands across the upholstery. She flipped down the passenger visor, looked at herself in the mirror. “No,” she said. “This is the car I was in. It was a prop in one of my movies, the one where the Americans are repelled and MacArthur is caught fleeing. This was the car the coward tried to escape in. I had a scene right here, in this seat. I had to kiss a traitor to get information. That was years ago, that movie.”
Talk of movies had fouled her mood, he could tell.
They drove alongside the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery. The Songun guard with their golden rifles had gone home for the day and in the long shadows cast by the bronze headstones moved occasional men and women. In the growing dark, these ghostly figures, keeping low and moving quickly, were gathering all the flowers from the graves.
“Always they are stealing flowers,” Sun Moon remarked as they passed by. “It sickens me. My great-uncle is in there, you know. Do you know what that says to our ancestors, how it must insult them?”
Ga asked her, “Why do you think they steal the flowers?”
“Yes, that’s the question, isn’t it? Who would do that? What’s happening to our country?”
He stole a brief glance, to confirm her disbelief. Had she never been hungry enough to eat a flower? Did she not know that you could eat daisies, daylilies, pansies, and marigolds? That hungry enough, a person could consume the bright faces of violas, even the stems of dandelions and the bitter hips of roses?
They crossed the Chongnyu Bridge, drove through the south of the city, and crossed again on the Yanggakdo. It was dinnertime, and there was wood smoke in the air. In the twilight, the Taedong River reminded him of mineshaft water, ore-dark and cold. She instructed him to take Sosong Street toward the Putong, but amid the thick apartment buildings that lined Chollima, something slammed onto the hood of their car. A gun had gone off, that’s what he thought at first, or some kind of collision. Commander Ga stopped in the road, and he and Sun Moon got out, leaving their doors open.
The road was wide and unlit, there were no other cars. It was the time of evening when blues and grays grew together. People had been grilling turnips at the curb—a band of bitter smoke stood in the air, waist high. They congregated around the car to see what had happened. There on the hood was a baby goat, its horns just stubs and its eyes loose and wet. Some people looked up to the rooftops where other animals continued to graze as the first stars appeared above. There was no gore, but you could see the goat’s little e
yes go milky and fill with blood. Sun Moon covered her face, and Ga put his hand on her shoulder.
Suddenly, a young woman broke from the crowd. She snatched the baby goat and bolted down the street. They watched her run, the goat’s bouncing head, its blood-spittle streaking down her back. The crowd, he realized, was now staring at him. He was a yangban in their eyes, with his fancy uniform and beautiful wife.
They arrived late to the Grand People’s Opera House, empty save for a few dozen couples in small groups, their conversations reduced to murmurs by the huge ceilings and cascades of black silk curtains and mulberry-colored carpets. In one of the upper balconies stood a tenor. With his hands clasped, he sang “Arirang” while below, despite the drinks and delicacies, the guests attempted to find some pleasure in the hollow time before they were rewarded with the Dear Leader’s spirited company.
“Arirang, Arirang,” the tenor sang, “ah-rah-ree-yoh.”
“That,” Sun Moon said, “is Dak-Ho. He runs the Central Cinema Studio. But his voice, no other man’s is his match.”
Commander Ga and Sun Moon moved watchfully toward the couples. How beautiful she was crossing the room, taking quick, small steps, her shape so perfectly implied in the drape of Korean silk.
The men were the first to acknowledge her. In their dress uniforms and Assembly suits, they showed their gold smiles as if Sun Moon hadn’t been absent from the yangban set for so long. They seemed indifferent to the cancellation of her movie premiere or to her arrival with a strange man in her husband’s uniform, as if all these weren’t signs they’d lost one of their own. The women, however, broadcast open scorn—perhaps they believed if they closed ranks against her, Sun Moon might not transmit to them the malady they feared most.
Sun Moon stopped suddenly and turned to Ga, as if overcome by an impulse to kiss him. Showing her back to those women, she looked into Ga’s eyes as if looking for her own reflection. “I am a talented actress and you are my husband,” she said. “I am a talented actress and you are my husband.”
Ga looked into her uncertain, unseeing eyes.
“You are a talented actress,” he said. “And I am your husband.”
Then she turned, smiled, and they strode forward.
One man broke from the group to intercept them.
At his approach, Sun Moon stiffened. “Commander Park,” she said. “How have you been?”
“Fine, thank you,” he said to Sun Moon, and with a jackknife bow, he kissed her hand. Rising, he said, “And Commander Ga, how long has it been?”
Park’s face was marked from a naval firefight with an ROK patrol boat.
“Too long, Commander Park, much too long.”
“True,” Park said. “But tell me, have you noticed something different about me?”
Ga looked at Park’s uniform, at his fat rings and tie, but really he couldn’t help being drawn to the striated scars on one side of his face.
“Certainly,” Ga said. “The change is for the better.”
“Really,” Commander Park said. “I thought you would be angry—you are the most competitive person.”
Ga glanced over at Sun Moon.
He thought she might be relishing this moment, but her face was fixed, wary.
Commander Park fingered a medal on his chest. “You will win your own Songun Cross one day,” he said. “True, it’s only given once a year, but don’t let that deter you.”
Ga said, “Perhaps I will be the first to win two in a row, then.”
Commander Park laughed. “That’s a good one, Ga. That is so like you.” He placed a hand on Ga’s shoulder, as if to whisper something humorous in his ear. Instead, he grabbed Ga’s collar, pulling him down to deliver a vicious uppercut to Ga’s midsection, a liver punch that knuckled under the ribs. Then Park strode away.
Sun Moon took hold of Ga and tried to usher him to a seat, but no, he wished to stand.
“Always men must come to that,” she said.
Between shallow breaths, Commander Ga asked, “Who was that?”
Sun Moon said, “That was your best friend.”
People returned to their conversations, standing in clusters near the food.
Ga held his side, then nodded. “I think I will sit,” he said, and they took chairs at an empty table. Sun Moon observed every move the partygoers made, attempting, it seemed, to read their conversations by gestures only.
A woman came their way alone. She wore a cautious look on her face, but she brought Ga a glass of water. She wasn’t much older than Sun Moon, yet she had tremors, so the water kept coming over the rim. In her other hand was a cocktail plate stacked with shrimp.
Ga took the glass and drank, though it hurt when the water went down.
The woman pulled from her pocket a piece of waxed paper and began placing the shrimp in it. “My husband,” she said. “He is my age. He has such a good heart, that man. By heart I mean he would have intervened in that spectacle we just witnessed. No, he couldn’t stand to see someone get hurt without getting involved.”
Ga watched her place the shrimp one at a time on the paper. He stared at their opaque white shells and black bead eyes—these were the blind, deep-water shrimp they’d risked their lives for aboard the Junma.
“I can’t say my husband has any distinguishing features,” she continued. “Like a scar or a birthmark. He is a normal man, about forty-five, with hair going white.”
Ga held his side in pain. Sun Moon, impatient, said, “Please leave us.”
“Yes, yes,” the woman said. She looked at Ga. “Do you think you ever saw him, in that place where you were?”
Ga set the glass down. “In the place where I was?” he asked.
“There are rumors,” the woman said. “People know where you came from.”
“You confuse me with someone else,” he told her. “I’m not a prisoner. I’m Commander Ga. I’m the Minister of Prison Mines.”
“Please,” the woman said. “I must have my husband back, I can’t … there’s no point without him. His name was—”
“Don’t,” Sun Moon said. “Don’t tell us his name.”
She looked from Sun Moon to Ga. “Is it true, I mean, have you heard there’s a lobotomy prison?” she asked. She held a shrimp in her shaking hand, and it wriggled mindlessly.
“What?” Ga asked.
“No,” said Sun Moon. “Stop.”
“You’ve got to help me find him. I’ve heard all the men are given lobotomies when they enter—they work like zombies forever.”
“No surgery is needed to make a man work like that,” he told her.
Sun Moon stood. She took Ga by the arm and led him away.
They blended into the crowds, mingling near the food. Then the lighting dimmed and the band began to tune its instruments. “What’s happening?” he asked her.
She pointed to a yellow curtain that hung across a second-floor balcony.
“The Dear Leader will emerge there,” she said and took a step away. “I must go talk to people about my movie. I must learn what happened to Comfort Woman.”
A spotlight hit the yellow curtain, and instead of “We Shall Follow You Forever,” the band began a rousing version of “The Ballad of Ryoktosan.” The tenor began singing of Ryoktosan, the baby-faced giant from South Hamgyong! The farmer’s boy who became the fighting king of Japan! The baby-faced giant who bested Sakuraba! Belt on his waist, all he longed for was home. His only desire a hero’s return to his sweet place of birth, Korea! But our champion was stolen and murdered, stabbed by the shamefaced Japanese. A Japanese knife, dripping with urine, brought the great Ryoktosan to his knees.
Soon, the crowd joined in. They knew when to stomp their feet and double clap. A throng of cheers rose when people heard the rolling, blast-proof doors open behind the curtain. And when the yellow parted, there stood a figure, short of stature, round-bellied, wearing a white dobok and a mask fashioned to resemble the big baby face of Ryoktosan. The crowd went wild. Here the tiny taekwondo fighter made
his way down the steps on nimble feet to run a victory lap through the crowd. He grabbed someone’s cognac and swilled it through the hole in his mask. Then he made his way to Commander Ga, bowing with the utmost formality before assuming a taekwondo stance.
Commander Ga didn’t know what to do. The guests began forming a large, loose circle around himself and this short man with his fists high. A spotlight was suddenly on them. The little man bobbed up and down, then approached Ga quickly, within striking distance, before backing away. Ga looked around for Sun Moon, but all he could see were the bright lights. The tiny fighter danced up to Ga and performed a series of air strikes and shadow kicks. Then, out of nowhere, the imp punched him—a quick, snapping shot to the throat.
A cheer went up, people began singing along with the ballad.
Ga grabbed his windpipe and bent over. “Please, sir,” he said, but the little man had moved to the edge of the circle, where he leaned against someone’s wife to catch his breath and have another drink.
Suddenly the little man backcircled in for another shot—should Ga block the punch, try to reason with the man, run?—but it was too late. Ga felt knuckles rake his eye and then his mouth was stinging and fat and then his nose went electric. He felt the hot flush, inside his head, and then the blood poured out his nose and back into his throat. Then little Ryoktosan did a dance for everyone’s pleasure, such as the Russian sailors do when on night leave from their submarines.
Ga’s eyes had watered, and he couldn’t see well. Yet again the small man came close—he connected with a left hook to Ga’s body. Ga’s pain responded on its own, sending a fist into the man’s nose.
You could hear the plastic mask crumple. He took a few stagger-steps backward as blood trickled from the nostril holes and a collective gasp went up from the assembled guests. They placed him in a chair, fetched a glass of water, and then lifted his mask to reveal not the Dear Leader but a small man, weak-featured, disoriented.
The spotlight lifted to the balcony. There, clapping, was the true Dear Leader.