The Orphan Master's Son

by Adam Johnson

  “Did you think it was me?” he called. “Did you think that was me?”

  The Dear Leader Kim Jong Il came down the stairs, laughing, shaking people’s hands, and accepting congratulations for a prank well done. He stopped to check on the little man in the dobok, leaning in close to inspect his wounds. “He is my driver,” the Dear Leader said and shook his head at the man’s nose. But a pat on the back was in order, and the Dear Leader’s personal physician was summoned.

  People grew quiet as the Dear Leader approached Commander Ga.

  Ga saw Sun Moon turn sideways to make her way closer, so she could hear.

  “No, no,” the Dear Leader said. “You must stand up straight to stop the blood,” and despite the pain in his midsection, Ga straightened. Then the Dear Leader took hold of Ga’s nose, pinched the nostrils shut above the bridge, and drew his fingers down to squeeze out all the blood and snot.

  “Did you think it was me?” he asked Ga.

  Ga nodded. “I thought it was you.”

  The Dear Leader laughed and slung the mess off his hands. “Do not worry,” he said. “The nose is not broken.”

  A handkerchief was handed to the Dear Leader. He wiped his hands as he addressed his guests—“He thought it was me,” he announced to the delight of the room. “But I am the real Kim Jong Il, I am the real me.” He pointed at his driver, whose eyes went suddenly wide. “He is the imposter, he is the one who pretends. I am the real Kim Jong Il.”

  The Dear Leader folded the cloth and gave it to Ga for his nose. Then he lifted Ga’s arm. “And here is the real Commander Ga. He has beaten Kimura, and now he will defeat the Americans.”

  The Dear Leader’s voice rose, as if he were speaking to all of Pyongyang, all of North Korea. “In need of a real hero, I give you Commander Ga,” he said. “In need of a national defender, I give you Commander Ga. Let’s hear it for the holder of the Golden Belt!”

  The applause was grand and sustained. Within it, the Dear Leader spoke to him in a low voice. “Take a bow, Commander,” he said.

  Hands at his sides, he bent at the waist, holding it a moment, observing drops of blood as they fell from his nose to the opera house carpet. When he rose, as if on cue a small fleet of beautiful servants emerged with trays of champagne. Above, Dak-Ho began singing “Unsung Heroes,” the theme song from Sun Moon’s first starring role.

  Commander Ga looked to Sun Moon, and her face confirmed that she now understood that it didn’t matter if her husband was alive or dead—he had been replaced and she would never see him again.

  She turned, and he followed.

  He caught her at an empty table, where she took a seat amid other people’s coats and bags. “What about your movie?” he asked. “What did you find out?”

  Her hands were shaking in front of her. “There will be no movie,” she said. The sadness was pure on her face, it was the opposite of acting.

  She was going to cry. He tried to comfort her, but she wouldn’t have it.

  “Nothing like this has ever happened to me,” Sun Moon said. “And now everything has gone wrong.”

  “Not everything,” he said.

  “Yes, everything,” she said. “You just don’t know the feeling. You don’t know what it’s like to lose a movie you worked on for a year. You’ve never lost all your friends or had your husband taken from you.”

  “Don’t speak this way,” he told her. “There’s no need to talk like this.”

  “This is what hunger must feel like,” she said, “this hollowness inside. This is what people must feel in Africa, where they have nothing to eat.”

  He was suddenly repulsed by her.

  “You want to know the flavor of hunger?” he demanded.

  From the table’s floral centerpiece, he plucked a petal from a rose. He tore off its white base, then placed the petal to her lips. “Open,” he said, and when she didn’t, he was rough with the word. “Open,” he demanded. She parted her lips and allowed the flower in. She looked up at him with welling eyes. And here the tears spilled as slowly, slowly, she began to chew.

  CITIZENS, come, gather ’round the loudspeakers in your kitchens and offices for the next installment of this year’s Best North Korean Story. Have you missed an episode? They are available for playback in the languages lab of the Grand People’s Study House. When last we saw the coward Commander Ga, he had been treated to his own taekwondo demonstration by the Dear Leader! Don’t be fooled by the Commander’s dashing uniform and cleanly parted hair—he is a tragic figure, who has far, far to fall before talk of redemption can begin.

  For now, our dazzling couple was crossing Pyongyang late after an opulent party as, neighborhood by neighborhood, substation power switches were being thrown to cast our sweet city into slumber. Commander Ga drove, while Sun Moon leaned with the turns.

  “I’m sorry about your movie,” he said.

  She didn’t respond. Her head was turned toward the darkening buildings.

  He said, “You can make another.”

  She dug through her purse, and then in frustration closed it.

  “My husband never let me run out of cigarettes, not once,” she said. “He had some special hiding place for the cartons, and every morning, there was a fresh pack under my pillow.”

  The Pyongchon eating district extinguished as they drove through it, and then one, two, three, the housing blocks along Haebangsan Street went black. Nighty-night, Pyongyang. You earned it. No nation sleeps as North Korea sleeps. After lights-out, there is a collective exhale as heads hit pillows across a million households. When the tireless generators wind down for the night and their red-hot turbines begin to cool, no lights glare on alone, no refrigerator buzzes dully through the dark. There’s just eye-closing satisfaction and then deep, powerful dreams of work quotas fulfilled and the embrace of reunification. The American citizen, however, is wide awake. You should see a satellite photo of that confused nation at night—it’s one grand swath of light, glaring with the sum of their idle, indolent evenings. Lazy and unmotivated, Americans stay up late, engaging in television, homosexuality, and even religion, anything to fill their selfish appetites.

  The city was in full darkness as they drove by the Hyoksin line’s Rakwan station. Their headlights momentarily illuminated an eagle owl atop the subway’s vent shaft, its beak at work on a fresh lamb. It would be easy, dear citizens, to feel for the poor lamb, plucked so young from life. Or the mama sheep, all her love and labor for nothing. Or even the eagle owl, whose duty it is to live by devouring others. Yet this is a happy story, citizen: by the loss of the inattentive and disobedient lamb, the ones on other rooftops are made stronger.

  They began making their way up the hill, passing the Central Zoo, where the Dear Leader’s own Siberian tigers were on display next to the pen that housed the zoo’s six dogs, all gifts from the former king of Swaziland. The dogs were kept on a strict diet of soft tomatoes and kimchi to lessen that animal’s inherent danger, though they will become meat-eaters again when it comes time for the Americans to visit!

  In the headlights they saw a man running from the zoo with an ostrich egg in his hands. Chasing him up the hill with flashlights were two watchmen.

  “Do you feel for the man hungry enough to steal?” Commander Ga asked as they drove by. “Or for the men who must hunt him down?”

  “Isn’t it the bird who suffers?” Sun Moon asked.

  They passed the cemetery, which was dark, as was the Fun Fair, its gondola chairs hanging pure black against a blue-black sky. Only the botanical gardens were lighted. Here, even at night, work on the hybrid crop program continued, the precious seed vault protected from an American invasion by a grand electric fence. Ga glanced at a cone of moths, high in protein, circling in a security light, and he became melancholy as he drove slowly up this last stretch of dirt road.

  “This is a fine automobile,” he said. “I will miss it.”

  By this, the Commander meant that, though our nation produces the finest vehicle
s in the world, life is transient and subject to hardships, which is the entire reason the Dear Leader has given us Juche philosophy.

  “I’ll pass your sentiments along,” Sun Moon said, “to the next man who finds himself driving it.”

  Here, the good actress is agreeing that the car is not theirs, but rather is the property of the citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Dearest General who leads us. She is wrong, however, to suggest that she does not belong to her husband, for a wife has certain obligations, and to these she is bound.

  Commander Ga pulled up before the house. The dust cloud that had been trailing them now caught up, ghostly in the headlights and the front door they illuminated. Sun Moon stared at this door with uncertainty, trepidation.

  “Is this a dream?” Sun Moon asked. “Tell me it’s only a movie I’m in.” But enough of your moods, the two of you! It’s time for sleep. Off to bed, now …

  Oh, Sun Moon, our heart never stops going out to you!

  Let us all repeat together: We miss you, Sun Moon!

  Finally, citizens, a warning that tomorrow’s installment contains an adult situation, so protect the ears of our littlest citizens as the actress Sun Moon decides whether she will open herself fully to her new husband Commander Ga, as is required by law of a wife, or whether she will make a misguided declaration of chastity.

  Remember, female citizens, however admirable it may be to remain chaste to a missing husband, such a sense of duty is misplaced. Whenever a loved one disappears, there is bound to be a lingering hurt. The Americans have the saying “Time heals all wounds.” But this is not true. Experiments have shown that healing is hastened only by self-criticism sessions, the inspirational tracts of Kim Jong Il, and replacement persons. So when the Dear Leader gives you a new husband, give yourself to him. Still: We love you, Sun Moon!

  Again: We love you, Sun Moon!

  Show your vigor, citizens.

  Repeat: We admire you, Sun Moon!

  Yes, citizens, that’s better.

  Louder: We emulate your sacrifice, Sun Moon!

  Let the Great Leader Kim Il Sung himself hear you in heaven!

  All together: We will bathe in the blood of the Americans who came to our great nation to hurt you!

  But we get ahead of ourselves. That is for a future episode.

  HOME FROM the Dear Leader’s party, Commander Ga studied Sun Moon’s evening routine. First, she lit an oil lantern, the kind they place on the beaches of Cheju so night fishermen can navigate their skiffs. She let the dog inside, then checked the bedroom to see that the children were asleep. When she did, she left the doors open for the first time. Inside, by the glow of her lamp, he saw a low mattress and rolled ox-hair mats.

  In the dark kitchen, he pulled a bottle of Ryoksong from the cool place under the sink. The beer was good, and the bottle soothed his stiffening hand. He didn’t want to see what his face looked like. She inspected his knuckles, a little fan of yellow beginning to show.

  “I have nursed many broken hands,” she said. “This is only a sprain.”

  “You think that driver was okay? It looked like I broke his nose.”

  She shrugged. “You have chosen to impersonate a man dedicated to violence,” she said. “These things happen.”

  “You’ve got it backward,” he answered. “Your husband chose me.”

  “Does it matter? You’re him now, aren’t you? Commander Ga Chol Chun—is that what I should call you?”

  “Look at how your children hide their eyes, how they’re afraid to move. I don’t want to be the man who taught them that.”

  “Tell me, then. What should I call you?”

  He shook his head.

  Her face agreed it was a difficult problem.

  The lamp’s light cast shadows that gave form to her body. She leaned against the counter and stared at the cabinets as if she were seeing the contents inside. But really she was looking the other way, into herself.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

  “That woman,” she said. “I haven’t been able to get her out of my head.”

  He’d thought, by the look on her face, that she was somehow blaming herself for things, which was something the Captain said his wife always did. But the moment she mentioned that woman, he knew exactly what Sun Moon was talking about.

  “That was foolish, that talk about lobotomies,” he said. “There is no such prison. People start rumors like that out of fear, out of not knowing.”

  He took a drink of beer. He opened and closed his jaw, moved it side to side to assess the damage to his face. Of course there was a zombie prison—he knew it must be true the second he’d heard it. He wished he could ask Mongnan about it—she’d know, she’d tell him all about the lobotomy factory, and she’d tell it in a way that made you certain you were the luckiest person in the world, that your lot in life was pure gold compared to others’.

  “If you’re worried about your husband, about what happened to him, I’ll tell you the story.”

  “I don’t want to talk about him,” she said. She bit one of her fingernails. “You mustn’t let me run out of cigarettes again, you must promise.” She retrieved a glass from the cupboard and set it on the counter. “This is the time of evening when you pour me some rice wine,” she told him. “That is one of your duties.”

  With the lamp, he went down into the tunnel to retrieve a bottle of rice wine, but he found himself looking at the DVDs instead. He ran his fingers along the movies, looking for one of hers, but there were no Korean films, and soon titles like Rambo, Moonstruck, and Raiders of the Lost Ark flipped the switch in his brain to read English and he couldn’t stop skimming the rows. Suddenly, Sun Moon was by his side.

  “You left me in the dark,” she said. “You have a lot to learn about how to treat me.”

  “I was looking for one of your movies.”

  “Yes?”

  “But there aren’t any.”

  “Not one?” She studied the rows of titles. “All these movies he had and not one by his own wife?” she asked, confused. She pulled one off the shelf. “What movie is this?”

  Ga looked at the cover. “It’s called Schindler’s List.” “Schindler” was a difficult word to say.

  She opened the case and looked at the DVD, how its surface shined against the light.

  “These are stupid,” she said. “Movies are the property of the people, not for a single person to hoard. If you’d like to see one of my films go to the Moranbong Theater, they never stop playing there. You can see a Sun Moon film with peasant and politburo alike.”

  “Have you seen any of these?”

  “I told you,” she said. “I’m a pure actress. These things would only corrupt me. I’m perhaps the only pure actress in the world.” She grabbed another movie and waved it at him. “How can people be artists when they act for money? Like the baboons in the zoo who dance at their tethers for heads of cabbage. I act for a nation, for an entire people.” She looked suddenly crestfallen. “The Dear Leader said I was going to act for the world. You know he gave me this name. In English, Sun means hae and Moon means dal, so I’d be night and day, light and dark, celestial body and its eternal satellite. The Dear Leader said that would make me mysterious to American audiences, that the intense symbolism would speak to them.”

  She stared at him.

  “But they don’t watch my movies in America, do they?”

  He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t believe they do.”

  She returned Schindler’s List to the shelf. “Get rid of these,” she said, “I don’t want to see them again.”

  “How did he watch them, your husband?” he asked. “You don’t have a player.”

  She shrugged.

  “Did he have a laptop?”

  “A what?”

  “A computer that folds up.”

  “Yes,” she said, “but I haven’t seen it in a while.”

  “Wherever the laptop is hiding,” he
told her, “I bet your cigarettes are there, too.”

  “It’s too late for wine,” she said. “Come, I will turn down the sheets.”

  The bed faced a large window that displayed the darkness of Pyongyang. She left the lamp burning on a side table. The children slept on a pallet at the foot, the dog between them. On the mantel above, out of the children’s reach, was the can of peaches Comrade Buc had given them. In the low light, they undressed, stripping to their undergarments. When they were under the sheets, Sun Moon spoke.

  “Here are the rules,” she said. “The first is that you will begin work on the tunnel, and you will not stop until there is a way out. I’m not getting trapped again.”

  He closed his eyes and listened to her demand. There was something pure and beautiful about it. If only more people in life said, This is what I must have.

  She eyed him, to make sure he was listening. “Next, the children will reveal their names to you only when they decide.”

  “Agreed,” he said.

  Far below, dogs began baying in the Central Zoo. Brando whimpered in his sleep.

  “And you cannot ever use taekwondo on them,” she said. “You will never make them prove their loyalty, you will never test them in any way.” She trained her eyes on him. “Tonight you discovered that my husband’s friends are happy to hurt you in public. It is still within my power to have one person crippled in this world.”

  From the botanical gardens down the hill came an intense blue flash that filled the room. There’s no arc quite like a human meeting an electric fence. Sometimes birds set off the fence in Prison 33. But a person—a deep-humming blue snap—that was a light that came through your eyelids and a buzz that entered your bones. In his barracks, that light, that sound, woke him up every time, though Mongnan said after a while you stop noticing.

  “Are there other rules?” he asked.

  “Only one,” she said. “You will never touch me.”

  In the dark, there was a long silence.

  He took a deep breath.

  “One morning, they lined up all the miners,” he said. “There were about six hundred of us. The Warden approached. He had a black eye, a fresh one. There was a military officer with him—tall-brimmed hat, lots of medals. This was your husband. He told the Warden to have us all remove our shirts.”