The Orphan Master's Son

by Adam Johnson

  This was the first time he’d entered the cemetery. Sun Moon ignored all the other markers and led them right to the bust of her great-uncle. The bust depicted a man whose face looked Southern in its angles and abruptness of brow. His eyes were almost closed in an expression of certainty and calm.

  “Ah,” Ga said. “It’s Kang Kung Li. He charged across a mountain bridge under enemy fire. He took the door off Kim Il Sung’s car and carried it as a shield.”

  “You’ve heard of him?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Ga said. “He saved many lives. People who break the rules in order to do good are sometimes named after him.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Sun Moon said. “I fear the only people named after him these days are a few measly orphans.”

  Commander Ga wandered the rows in stunned recognition. Here were the names of all the boys he’d known, and looking at their busts, it seemed as though they’d made it to adulthood—here they had mustaches and strong jaws and broad shoulders. He touched their faces and ran his fingers in the hangul characters of their names carved in the marble pedestals. It was as if, instead of starving at nine or falling to factory accidents at eleven, they’d all lived into their twenties and thirties like normal men. At the tomb of Un Bo Song, Commander Ga traced the features of the bronze bust with his hand. The metal was cold. Here Bo Song was smiling and bespectacled, and Ga touched the martyr’s cheek, saying, “Bo Song.”

  There was one more bust he needed to see, and Sun Moon and the children trailed him through the tombs until he came to it. The bust and the man faced one another but bore no resemblance. He hadn’t known what he’d feel when he finally faced this martyr, but Ga’s only thought was, I’m not you. I’m my own man.

  Sun Moon approached him. “Is this martyr special to you?” she asked.

  “I used to know someone with his name,” he told her.

  “Do you know this one’s story?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s a pretty simple tale. Though descended from impure bloodlines, he joined the guerrillas to fight the Japanese. His comrades doubted his loyalties. To prove they could trust him with their lives, he took his own.”

  “That story speaks to you?”

  “This guy I used to know,” he said. “It spoke to him.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Sun Moon said. “Once a year is all I can take of this place.”

  The boy and the girl each held a hand on Brando’s lead as he pulled them deep into the woods. Commander Ga started a fire and showed the children how to notch a tripod to hold a pot over the flames. The pot they filled with water from a stream, and when they found a little pool, they narrowed the water’s exit with rocks, and Ga held his shirt at the pinch point like a sieve while the children walked the pool, trying to scare any fish downstream. They caught a ten-centimeter fingerling in the shirt. Or perhaps it was an adult and the fish here were stunted. He scaled the fish with the back of a spoon, gutted it, and fixed it on a stick for Sun Moon to grill. Once charred, it would go into the stock with the salt.

  There were many flowers growing wild, probably owing to the proximity of the cemetery’s bouquets. He showed the children how to identify and pick ssukgat; together they softened the stalks between two stones. Behind a boulder was an ostrich fern, its succulent buds begging to be stripped from their fanlike leaves. As luck would have it, growing at the bottom of the boulder was stone-ear seogi—sharp with the brine of seaweed. They scraped these lichen free with a sharp stick. He showed the boy and the girl how to spot yarrow, and searching together, they managed to find one wild ginger, small and pungent. As a final touch, they picked shiso leaves, a plant left behind by the Japanese.

  Soon the pot was steaming, three dots of fish oil turning on the surface as Ga stirred the wild herbs. “This,” Ga said, “is my favorite meal in the world. In prison, they kept us right at the edge of starvation. You could still do work, but you couldn’t think. Your mind would try to retrieve a word or thought, but it wouldn’t be there. There’s no sense of time when you’re hungry. You just labor and then it’s dark, no memory. But on logging details, we could make this. By building a fishfall at night, you could gather minnows all day while you worked. Herbs were everywhere up in the hills, and every bowl of this added a week to your life.”

  He tasted the broth, bitter still. “More time,” he said. His wet shirt hung in a tree.

  “What about your parents?” Sun Moon asked. “I thought when people were sent to the labor camps, their parents went with them.”

  “It’s true,” he told her. “But that wasn’t a concern for me.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” she said.

  “I guess you could say my folks lucked out,” he said. “What of your parents? Do they live here in the capital?”

  Sun Moon’s voice went grave. “I only have my mother left,” she said. “She’s in the east. She retired to Wonsan.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “Wonsan.”

  She was quiet. He stirred the soup, the herbs rising now.

  “How long ago was this?” he asked.

  “A few years,” she said.

  “And she’s busy,” he said. “Probably too busy to write.”

  It was hard to read her face. She looked at him expectantly, as if hoping that he would offer reassuring news. But deeper in her eyes, he could see a darker knowing.

  “I wouldn’t worry about her,” he said. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  Sun Moon didn’t look comforted.

  The children took turns tasting the soup and making faces.

  He tried again. “Wonsan has plenty to keep a person busy,” he added. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The sand is especially white. And the waves are quite blue.”

  Sun Moon gazed absently into the pot.

  “So don’t believe the rumors, okay?” he told her.

  “What are the rumors?” she asked.

  “That’s the spirit,” he said.

  In Prison 33, all of a person’s self-deceit was slowly broken down, until even the fundamental lies that formed your identity faltered and fell. For Commander Ga, this happened at a stoning. These took place near the river, where there were banks of round, water-polished rocks. When a person was caught trying to escape, he was buried to his waist at the water’s edge and at dawn, a slow, almost endless procession of inmates filed by. There were no exceptions—everyone had to throw. If your toss was lackluster, the guards would shout for vigor, but you didn’t have to throw again. He’d been through it three times, but deep in the line, so that what he stoned was not a person but a mass, bent unnaturally to the ground, no longer even steaming.

  But one morning, by chance, he was near the front of the line. Traversing the round stones was dangerous for Mongnan. She needed an arm to steady her, and she had him up early, near the front of the line, none of which he minded until he came to understand that the man they were to stone would be awake and have an opinion. The rock was cold in his hand. He could hear the rocks ahead of them finding their homes. He steadied Mongnan as they neared the half-buried man, whose arms were up in a mime of self-defense. He was trying to speak, but something other than words was coming out, and the blood that ran from his wounds was still hot.

  Nearing, he saw the bleeding man’s tattoos, and it took him a moment to realize they were in Cyrillic, and then he saw the face of the woman inked on his chest.

  “Captain,” he called, dropping his rock, “Captain, it’s me.”

  The Captain’s eyes rolled in recognition, but he could not make words. His hands still moved, as if he was trying to clear imaginary cobwebs. His fingernails had somehow torn during his escape attempt.

  “Don’t,” Mongnan said as he let go her arm and crouched by the Captain, taking the sailor’s hand. “It’s me, Captain, from the Junma,” he said.

  There were only two guards, young men with hard-set faces and ancient rifles. They began shouting, their words coming in sharp claps, but he wouldn’t let go of the old ma
n’s hand.

  “The Third Mate,” the Captain said. “My boy, I told you I’d protect all of you. I saved my crew again.”

  It was unnerving how the Captain looked toward him, yet his eyes didn’t quite find him.

  “You must get out, son,” the Captain said. “Whatever you do, get out.”

  A warning shot was fired, and Mongnan scrambled to him, pleading with him to return to the line. “Don’t let your friend see you get shot,” she told him. “Don’t let that be the last thing he sees.”

  With these words, she pulled him back in line. The guards were quite agitated, barking orders, and Mongnan was almost yelling above them. “Throw your stone,” she commanded. “You must throw it,” and as if offering her own incentive, she dealt the Captain a hard, glancing shot to the head. It loosed a tuft of hair into the wind. “Now!” she commanded, and he hefted his rock and dealt his blow hard to the Captain’s temple, and that was the last thing the Captain saw.

  Later, behind the rain barrels, he broke down.

  Mongnan brought him to the ground, held him.

  “Why wasn’t it Gil?” he asked her. He was weeping uncontrollably. “The Second Mate I could understand. Even Officer So. Not the Captain. He followed every rule, why him? Why not me? I have nothing, nothing at all. Why should he go to prison twice?”

  Mongnan pulled him to her. “Your Captain fought back,” she told him. “He resisted, he wouldn’t let them take his identity. He died free.”

  He couldn’t get hold of his breathing, and she pulled him close, like a child. “There,” she said, rocking him. “There’s my little orphan, my poor little orphan.”

  Meekly, through tears, he said, “I’m not an orphan.”

  “Of course you are,” she said. “I’m Mongnan, I know an orphan, of course you are. Just let go, let it all out.”

  “My mother was a singer,” he told her. “She was very beautiful.”

  “What was the name of your orphanage?”

  “Long Tomorrows.”

  “Long Tomorrows,” she said. “Was the Captain a father to you? He was a father, wasn’t he?”

  He just wept.

  “My poor little orphan,” she said. “An orphan’s father is twice as important. Orphans are the only ones who get to choose their fathers, and they love them twice as much.”

  He put his hand over his chest, remembering how the Captain had worked the image of Sun Moon into his skin.

  “I could have given him his wife back,” he told her, weeping.

  “But he wasn’t your father,” she said. She took his chin and tried to lift his head so she could get through to him, but he pulled his head back to her breast. “He wasn’t your father,” she said, stroking his hair. “What’s important now is that you let go of all your illusions. It’s time to see the truth of things. Like the fact that he was right, that you have to get out of here.”

  In the pot, little flakes of fish were floating off the spine, and Sun Moon, lost in thought, slowly stirred. Ga thought of how difficult it was to come to see the lies you told yourself, the ones that allowed you to function and move forward. To really do it, you needed someone’s help. Ga leaned over to smell the broth—it cleared his mind, this perfect meal. Eating such a meal at sunset, after a day of logging the ravines above 33, it was the definition of being alive. He removed Wanda’s camera and took a photo of the boy and the girl and the dog and Sun Moon, all of them casting their eyes the way people do into a fire.

  “My stomach’s growling,” the boy said.

  “Perfect timing,” Commander Ga answered. “The soup’s ready.”

  “But we don’t have bowls,” the girl said.

  “We don’t need them,” he told her.

  “What about Brando?” the boy asked.

  “He’ll have to find his own lunch,” Ga said and removed the loop of rope from the dog’s neck. But the dog didn’t move—he sat there, staring at the pot.

  They began passing a single spoon around, and the taste of the charred fish was magnificent with the yarrow and hint of shiso.

  “Prison food’s not so bad,” the girl said.

  “You two must be wondering about your father,” Commander Ga said.

  The boy and the girl didn’t look up; instead, they kept the spoon in motion.

  Sun Moon threw him a harsh look, warning him that he was in dangerous territory.

  “The wound of not knowing,” Ga said to her. “That’s the one that never heals.”

  The girl cast him a thin, measured glance.

  “I promise to tell you about your father,” Ga went on. “After you’ve had more time to adjust.”

  “To adjust to what?” the boy asked. “To him,” the girl told her brother.

  “Children,” Sun Moon said, “I told you, your father’s just on a long mission.”

  “That’s not true,” Commander Ga said. “But I’ll tell you the whole story soon.”

  Quietly, through her teeth, Sun Moon said, “Don’t you take their innocence.”

  From the woods came a rustle. Brando stood at attention, his hair bristling.

  The boy got a smile on his face. He had seen all of the dog’s tricks and here was a chance to try one out. “Hunt,” the boy said.

  “No,” Ga called, but it was too late—the dog was already sprinting into the trees, his bark describing a hectic path through the brush. He barked on and on. And then they heard the shriek of a woman. Ga grabbed the rope lead and began running. The boy and the girl were right behind him. Ga followed the small stream for a while, and he could see that the water was muddy from the dog. Soon, he came upon a family, backed against a boulder by Brando’s barking. The family was eerily like theirs—a man and woman, a boy and girl, an older aunt. The dog was very agitated, snapping its teeth in mock charges, shifting its attention from one ankle to another, as if it would take all their legs in turn. Slowly Ga approached, slipped the loop around the dog’s neck.

  Ga backed the dog up and took a look at the family. Their fingernails were white with malnutrition, and even the girl’s teeth had gone gray. The boy’s shirt hung empty on him as from a wire hanger. Both women had lost much hair, and the father was nothing but cords under taut skin. Ga suddenly realized the father had something behind his back. Ga rattled the rope around the dog’s neck to get it lunging.

  “What are you hiding?” Ga shouted. “Show it. Show it before I let the dog loose.”

  Sun Moon came up breathing heavily as the man produced a dead squirrel, its tail snapped away.

  Ga couldn’t tell if they’d stolen it from the dog or if the dog was trying to steal it from them.

  Sun Moon took a hard look at them. “My word,” she said. “They’re starving. There’s nothing to them.”

  The girl turned to her father. “We’re not starving, are we, Papa?”

  “Of course not,” the father said.

  “Right before our eyes,” Sun Moon said. “Starving to death!”

  Sun Moon flashed them the back of her hand and pointed at a ring. “Diamond,” she said, and after wresting it off, she placed it in the hands of the frightened mother before her.

  Ga advanced and took back the ring. “Don’t be a fool,” he told Sun Moon. “This ring was a gift from the Dear Leader. Do you know what would happen if they got caught with a ring like this?” In his pocket, Ga had some military won, not much else. He took his boots off. “If you want to help them,” Ga told Sun Moon, “they need simple things they can barter at the market.”

  The boy and the girl removed their shoes, and Ga also offered his belt. Sun Moon contributed earrings. “There’s a pot of soup,” Sun Moon said. “It’s good. Just follow the stream. Keep the pot.”

  “That dog,” the father said. “I thought it was escaped from the zoo.”

  “No,” Ga told him. “He’s ours.”

  “You don’t have an extra one, do you?” the father asked.

  That night, Commander Ga hummed along as Sun Moon sang the children to s
leep. “The cat’s in the cradle,” she sang, “the baby’s in the tree.” Later, when they’d climbed into bed, Sun Moon said to him, “Do you think the Dear Leader’s line should be read ‘Love knows no replacement,’ as if it’s unthinkable to search for a substitute for love, or ‘Love knows no replacement,’ suggesting that love is sentient and is itself at a loss to comprehend its absence?”

  “I have to tell you the truth,” he said to her.

  “I’m an actress,” she said. “The truth is all that matters to me.”

  He didn’t hear her roll to her side, so he knew they both stared into the same darkness above. He was suddenly scared. His hands gripped the sheets.

  “I’ve never been to Wonsan,” he said. “But I’ve sailed past it many times. There are no umbrellas in the sand. There are no lounge chairs or fishing poles. There are no old people. Wherever the grandparents of North Korea go, it’s not Wonsan.”

  He tried to listen for her breathing, but couldn’t even hear that.

  At last, she spoke to him.

  “You’re a thief,” she said. “You are a thief who came into my life and stole everything that mattered to me.”

  The next day, she was silent. For breakfast, she murdered an onion and served it raw. The children were deft at quietly migrating to whatever room she wasn’t in. Once, she ran out of the house screaming, only to lie weeping in her garden. She came back in to argue with the loudspeaker. Then she threw them out of the house so she could bathe, and standing in the grass together, Commander Ga and the children and the dog stared at the front door, behind which they could hear her furiously scrubbing every inch of her skin. The children soon wandered down the hill, practicing “hunt” and “fetch” with Brando by tossing melon rinds into the trees.

  Commander Ga stood to the side of the house, where Comrade Buc found him. Buc kept his Ryoksong beer in a shady patch of tall, cool grass. He offered Ga one. Together they drank and stared up at Sun Moon’s balcony. She was up there in her house robe, smoking and running lines from Ultimate Sacrifices, but every word she read with anger.