The Orphan Master's Son

by Adam Johnson

  “What do the words mean?”

  “They’re about a woman whose beauty is like a rare flower. There is a man who has a great love for her, a love he’s been saving up for his entire life, and it doesn’t matter that he must make a great journey to her, and it doesn’t matter if their time together is brief, that afterward he might lose her, for she is the flower of his heart and nothing will keep him from her.”

  “The man in the song,” she said. “Is he you?”

  “You know I’m him.”

  “I’m not the woman in the song,” she said. “I’m not an actress or a singer or a flower. I’m just a woman. Do you want to know this woman? Do you want to be the only man in the world who knows the real Sun Moon?”

  “You know I do.”

  Here she raised her body some to allow him to pull free her last garment.

  “Do you know what happens to men who fall in love with me?” she asked.

  Ga took a moment to think about it.

  “They get locked in your tunnel and fed nothing but broth for two weeks?”

  Playfully, she said, “No.”

  “Hmm,” Ga said. “Your neighbor tries to give them botulism and then they get punched in the nose by the Dear Leader’s driver?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, I give up. What happens to men who fall for you?”

  She shimmied her body so that her hips were under his.

  “They fall forever,” she said.

  AFTER the loss of Jujack and Q-Kee’s defection to the Pubyok, I stayed away from Division 42. I know I roamed the city, but for how long, a week? And where did I go? Did I wander the People’s Footpath, watching birds hopelessly hover above the snares that held their feet? Did I inhabit the Kumsusan mausoleum, where I endlessly stared into the chrome-and-glass coffin of Kim Il Sung, his body glowing red under preservation lamps? Or did I study the Urchin Master as he used his truck, disguised as an ice-cream van, to rid Pyongyang’s alleys of beggar boys? Did I at any time recall recruiting Jujack at Kim Il Sung University’s career day, where I wore a suit and a tie as I showed the boy our color brochures and explained to him that interrogation wasn’t about violence anymore, that it was about the highest order of intellectual gamesmanship, where the tools were creative thinking and the stakes were national security? Perhaps I sat in Mansu Park watching virgins soak their uniforms with sweat as they chopped firewood. Wouldn’t I have, here, pondered the notion that I was alone, that my team was gone, that my interns were gone, that my successes were gone, that my chances at love and friendship and family seemed all but gone? Maybe my mind was empty as I stood in line for buses I didn’t intend to take, and maybe I thought nothing as I was rounded up for a sandbag brigade. Or perhaps I was reclined the whole time on the blue vinyl of an autopilot chair, imagining such things? And what was wrong with my memory? How come I didn’t recollect how I spent these painful days, and why was I okay with the fact that I couldn’t recall them? I preferred it this way, didn’t I? Compared to forgetting, did living really stand a chance?

  I was nervous when I finally returned to Division 42. Descending the final staircase, I wasn’t sure what I’d find. But all seemed active and normal. There were new cases on the big board and red lights glowed above the holding tanks. Q-Kee walked past, new intern in tow.

  “Good to see you, sir,” she said.

  Sarge was particularly jovial. “There’s our interrogator,” he said. “Good to have you back.” He said it in a way that suggested he was talking about more than my recent absence.

  He had a large metal object on the workbench.

  “Hey, Sarge,” I said.

  “Sarge?” he asked. “Who’s that?”

  “I mean Comrade, sorry,” I said.

  “There’s the spirit,” Sarge said.

  Just then, Commander Park walked by, limping, his arm in a sling. He had something in his hand—I couldn’t make it out, but it was pink and wet and raw. Let me tell you, Commander Park, with his scarified face, was one sinister figure. The way he looked at you with those dead eyes in their marred sockets, it was like he belonged in some kind of spooky movie about evil dictators in Africa or something. He wrapped the item in newspaper, then sent it via vacuum tube deep into the bunker under us. He wiped his hand on his pants and left.

  Sarge snapped his fingers in my face. “Comrade,” he said.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I haven’t seen Commander Park up here before.”

  “He’s the Commander,” Sarge said.

  “He’s the Commander,” I echoed.

  “Look,” Sarge said. “I know you got caught up in the harvest, and your apartment is on the twenty-second floor. I know you don’t get priority seating on the subway.” Here he reached in his pocket. “So I got you a little something,” he said. “Something to dispense with all of life’s little problems.”

  I was sure it would be the next-generation sedative I’d heard rumors of.

  Instead, he produced a shiny new Pubyok badge. “There’s no such thing as a team of one,” he said, offering it to me. “You’re a smart guy. We need a smart guy. Q-Kee learned a lot from you. Come on, be smart. You can keep working with her.”

  “Ga’s still my case,” I said. “I need to see it through.”

  “That’s something I can respect,” Sarge said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. Finish your work, by all means, then join the team.”

  When I took the badge, he said, “I’ll have the boys schedule your haircutting party.”

  I turned the badge in my hand. There was no name on it, just a number.

  Sarge took me by the shoulder. “Come, check this out,” he said.

  At the workbench, he handed me the metal object. It weighed a tremendous amount. I could barely wield it. It had a solid handle that connected to a strip of writing cast from forged metal.

  “What language is that?” I asked. “English?”

  Sarge nodded. “But even if you did know English,” he said, “you wouldn’t be able to read it. The writing is backward.” He took it from me, so that he could indicate the script. “It’s called a brand. Pure iron, custom smelted. You use it to make a mark of possession, which you can then read forward. I can’t remember if it says Property of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or if it says Property of the Dear Leader Kim Jong Il.”

  Sarge studied my face to see if I would make a smart remark like What’s the difference?

  When I didn’t, he smiled and nodded in approval.

  I looked for a power cord on the device but saw nothing. “How’s it work?”

  “Easy,” he said. “It’s old American technology. You put it in a bed of coals until it’s red hot. Then you burn the message in.”

  “Into what?” I asked.

  “Commander Ga,” he said. “They’re going to brand him at dawn in the soccer stadium.”

  The ghouls, I thought, though I tried hard to show no emotion.

  “Is that what Commander Park was doing here?”

  “No,” Sarge said. “The Dear Leader sent Commander Park here on a personal errand. It seems the Dear Leader misses Sun Moon and wanted a last image to remember her by.”

  I stared at Sarge, trying to comprehend what he was saying, but as a sly smile crossed his face, I turned and ran, ran as fast as I could to Commander Ga. I found him in one of the soundproof holding tanks.

  “They’re going to do it in the morning,” Ga said when I entered his room. He was lying on an interrogation table, shirtless, his hands in restraints. “They’re going to take me to the soccer stadium and brand me in front of everyone.” But I couldn’t hear his words. I only stared at his chest. I neared, slowly, my eyes fixated on the raw red square where his tattoo of Sun Moon used to be. There had been much blood—the table was dripping with it—but now only a clear fluid wept from the wound, leaving pinkish ribbons trailing down his ribs.

  “I could use a bandage,” he said.

  I looked around the room, but there was nothing.


  I watched a chill run across his body. This was followed by a couple of deep breaths, which caused him great pain. A strange laugh came out of him, filled with agony.

  “They didn’t even ask me about the actress,” he said.

  “I guess that means you beat them.”

  His jaw seized with the pain, so he could only nod.

  He snatched a couple of quick breaths, then said, “If you ever get a choice between Commander Park with a box cutter—” Here he clenched his teeth a moment. “And a shark …”

  I put my hand on his forehead, which was running with sweat.

  “Take the shark, right? Look,” I said. “Don’t talk, there’s no need to be funny. Don’t try to be Comrade Buc.”

  The name, I could tell, caused him the greatest pain of all.

  “It wasn’t supposed to work like that,” Ga said. “Buc wasn’t supposed to get hurt.”

  “You just worry about yourself,” I said.

  Sweat was pooling in Ga’s eyes, which were burning with worry.

  “Is this what happened to Buc?” he asked.

  I used my shirttail to dry his eyes.

  “No,” I said. “Buc went on his own terms.”

  Ga nodded, his lower jaw shuddering.

  Sarge came in, grinning. “What do you think of the great Commander Ga now?” he asked. “He’s the most dangerous man in our nation, you know.”

  “That’s not the real Commander Ga,” I reminded Sarge. “This is just a man.”

  Sarge came astride Commander Ga’s table.

  Wincing, Commander Ga tried to roll his head as far from Sarge as possible.

  Yet Sarge neared, leaning over Commander Ga as if to inspect the wound up close. Sarge looked back at me, smiling. “Oh, yes,” he said. “The good Commander here has had pain training.” Then Sarge took a breath and blew into Ga’s wound.

  The scream that followed made my ears sing.

  “He’s ready to talk now,” Sarge said. “And you’re going to get his confession.”

  I looked to Commander Ga, who took shallow, trembling breaths.

  “But what about his biography?” I asked Sarge.

  “You understand this is the last biography, right?” he told me. “That age is over. But you can do anything you like as long as we have his confession in hand when they take him to the stadium at first light.”

  When I nodded, Sarge left.

  I leaned close to Commander Ga. His skin would frost with goose pimples, then go slack. He wasn’t a hero. He was just a man, pushed farther than any man should be pushed. Looking at him now, I understood the fairy tale he’d told us about the little orphan boy who’d licked honey from the Dear Leader’s claws. The night Ga told us that story, I realized, was the last time my team was whole and together.

  “I’m not going to let the bear get you,” I told him. “I’m not going to let them do what they’re planning to do.”

  There were tears in Ga’s eyes. “Bandage,” is all he could say.

  “I have an errand to run,” I told him. “Then I’ll be back to save you.”

  At the Glory of Mount Paektu Housing Block, I didn’t bound up the twenty-one flights to my parents. I took the stairs slowly for once, feeling the labor of each step. I couldn’t get that brand out of my mind. I saw it scalding red and bubbly across Commander Ga, I imagined its scars, ancient and discolored, running down the thick backs of all the old Pubyok, I saw Q-Kee’s perfect body disfigured by it, a burn from neck to navel, splitting the breasts toward the sternum, the belly, and below. I didn’t use my Pubyok badge to board the subway’s priority seating car. I sat with the average citizens, and on all their bodies, I couldn’t help but see “Property of” in raised pink letters. The mark was on everyone, only now could I finally see it. It was the ultimate perversion of the communist dream I’d been taught since childhood. I felt like retching the turnips in my stomach.

  I was almost never home in the middle of the day. I took the opportunity to remove my shoes in the hall and ever so silently slip my key in the lock. Opening the door, I lifted up on the knob, so the door’s hinges wouldn’t squeak. Inside, the loudspeaker was blaring, and my parents were at the table with some of my files open and spread before them. They were whispering to one another as they ran their fingers across the pages, feeling the file labels and paper clips, the embossed stamps and raised department seals.

  I knew better than to leave important files at home anymore. These were just requisition forms.

  I pushed the door shut behind me. It squealed in its arc until the lock clicked tight.

  The two of them froze.

  “Who is it?” my father asked. “Who’s there?”

  “Are you a thief?” my mother asked. “I assure you we have nothing to steal.”

  They were both looking right at me, though they seemed not to see me.

  Across the table, their hands sought one another and joined.

  “Go away,” my father said. “Leave us alone, or we’ll tell our son.”

  My mother felt around the table until she located a spoon. She grabbed the handle and held it out like a knife. “You don’t want my son to find out about this,” she said. “He’s a torturer.”

  “Mother, Father,” I said. “No need to worry, it is I, your son.”

  “But it’s the middle of the day,” my father said. “Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” I told him.

  I walked to the table and closed the files.

  “You’re barefoot,” my mother said.

  “I am.”

  I could see the marks on them. I could see that they’d been branded.

  “But I don’t understand,” my father said.

  “I’m going to have a long night,” I told them. “And some long tomorrows to follow. I won’t be here to cook your dinner or help you down the hall to the bathroom.”

  “Don’t worry about us,” my mother said. “We can manage. If you have to go, go.”

  “I do have to go,” I said.

  I walked to the kitchen. From a drawer, I removed the can opener. I paused there at the window. Spending my days underground, I wasn’t used to the midday brightness. I observed the spoon and pan and hot plate my mother cooked with. I stared at the drying rack, where two glass bowls caught the light. I decided against bowls.

  “I think you’re afraid of me,” I said to them. “Because I’m a mystery to you. Because you don’t really know me.”

  I thought they’d protest, but they were silent. I reached to the top shelf and found the can of peaches. I blew on the lid, but it hadn’t been there long enough to gather much dust. At the table, I took the spoon from my mother’s hand and sat, the items before me.

  “Well, you won’t have to worry ever again,” I told them. “Because today you’re going to meet the real me.”

  I sank the opener into the can and began to cut a slow circle.

  My father sniffed the air. “Peaches?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Peaches in their own sweet liquor.”

  “From the night market?” Mother asked.

  “Actually, I stole them from the evidence locker.”

  My father inhaled deeply. “I can just see them, plain as day, the thick juice they’re in, the way they glow in the light.”

  “It’s been so long since I’ve tasted a peach,” my mother said. “We used to get a coupon for a can every month in our ration book.”

  My father said, “Oh, that was years ago.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” my mother answered. “I’m just saying that we used to love peaches, and then one day you couldn’t get them anymore.”

  “Well, allow me, then,” I told them. “Open.”

  Like children, they opened their mouths. In anticipation, my father closed his milky eyes.

  I stirred the peaches in their can, then selected a slice. Passing the bottom of the spoon across the edge of the can, I caught the dripping syrup. Then I rea
ched and slipped the slice into my mother’s mouth.

  “Mmm,” she said.

  I fed my father next.

  “That, son,” he said, “was a peach.”

  There was silence, except for the blaring loudspeaker, as they savored the moment.

  In unison, they said, “Thank you, Dear Leader Kim Jong Il.”

  “Yes,” I said. “You have him to thank.”

  I stirred the can again, hunted down the next slice.

  “I have a new friend,” I said.

  “A friend from work?” my father asked.

  “Yes, a friend from work,” I said. “The two of us have become quite intimate. He’s given me hope that love is out there for me. He’s a man who has true love. I’ve studied his case very closely, and I think the secret to love is sacrifice. He himself has made the ultimate sacrifice for the woman he loves.”

  “He gave his life for her?” my father asked.

  “Actually, he took her life,” I told him and popped a peach in his mouth.

  There was a quake in my mother’s voice. “We’re happy for you,” she said. “As the Dear Leader says, Love makes the world go ’round. So don’t hesitate. Go find that true love. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine. We can take care of ourselves.”

  I spooned a slice into her mouth. It caught her by surprise and she coughed.

  “Perhaps, from time to time,” I said, “you have seen me writing in my journal. It’s actually not a journal—it’s a personal biography. As you know, that’s what I do for a living, write people’s biographies, which we keep in what you might call a private library. A guy I work with, I’ll call him Sarge, says the problem with my biographies is that no one ever reads them. This brings me to my new friend, who told me that the only people in the world who would want to read his biography were gone.”

  I dished out new slices with ample syrup.

  “People,” my father said, “meaning the lady that your friend loves.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “The lady that your friend killed,” Mother said.

  “And her kids,” I said. “There is a tragic aspect to the story, there’s no denying it.”

  I nodded my head at the truth of that. It would have made a good subtitle for his biography—Commander Ga: A Tragedy. Or whatever his name was.