The Orphan Master's Son

by Adam Johnson

  When Sun Moon was clad in silver, he spent no time in admiring her. He lifted her high, and once in place, he handed her the laptop.

  “This is your letter of transit,” he told her.

  “Like in our movie,” she said, and smiled in disbelief.

  “That’s right,” he told her. “The golden thing that gets you to America.”

  “Listen to me,” she said. “There are four barrels here, one for each of us. I know what’s going through your head, but don’t be stupid. You heard my song, you saw the look on his face.”

  “Aren’t you coming with us?” the girl asked.

  “Hush,” Sun Moon told her.

  “What about Brando?” the boy asked.

  “He’s coming,” Ga told them. “The Dear Leader’s going to give him back to the Senator, saying that his nature is too vicious for the peace-loving citizens of our nation.”

  The kids didn’t smile at this.

  “Will we ever see you again?” the girl asked.

  “I’m going to see you,” Ga said, and handed her the camera. “When you take a picture, it shows up on my phone, here.”

  “What should we take pictures of?” the boy asked.

  “Anything you want to show me,” he said. “Whatever makes you smile.”

  “Enough of this,” Sun Moon said. “I did what you asked, I put you in my heart. It’s the only thing I know, not to separate, for everyone to stay together, no matter what.”

  “You’re in my heart, too,” Ga said, and at the sound of Comrade Buc’s forklift, he pounded the lids onto the barrels.

  The dog found this development quite distressing. Whimpering, Brando circled the barrels, looking for a way in.

  Into the fourth barrel, Commander Ga shook out the remaining contents of the guitar case. Photographs fluttered inside, thousands of them, all the lost souls of Prison 33, each with names, dates of entry, dates of death.

  Ga swung open the back wall of the temple, then guided Buc in with hand signals.

  The color was gone from Buc’s face. “Are we really doing this?” he asked.

  “Swing wide around the crowd,” Ga told him. “Make it look like you’re coming from the other direction.”

  Buc lifted the pallet and shifted into reverse, but he held the forklift there.

  “You’re going to confess, right?” Buc asked. “The Dear Leader’s going to know this is your doing?”

  “Trust me, he’ll know,” Ga said.

  When Buc backed into the light, Ga was horrified to see how clear it was that people were in the barrels, at least the outlines of them, like willow worms shifting in their white cocoons.

  “I think we forgot air holes,” Buc said.

  “Just go,” Ga told him.

  Out on the runway, Ga found the Dear Leader and Commander Park orchestrating teams of children rolling barrels onto forklift pallets. The children’s motions were choreographed, but without the music of a band behind them, the pantomime resembled the tractor-assembly robot on display at the Museum of Socialist Progress.

  With them was the Girl Rower in her golden dress. She stood silently by Wanda’s side, wearing heavy sunglasses behind which her eyes could not be seen. It gave her the effect of looking deeply drugged. Or maybe, Ga thought, that surgery had been done to her eyes.

  The Dear Leader came near, and Ga could see that his smile had returned.

  “Where is our Sun Moon?” he asked.

  “You know her,” Ga said. “She must look perfect. She’ll fuss until perfection is found.”

  The Dear Leader nodded at the truth of that. “At least the Americans will soon see her undeniable beauty as she bids farewell to our gruff visitor. Side by side, there will be no question of who is superior. At least I will have that satisfaction.”

  “When do I return the dog?” Ga asked.

  “That, Commander Ga, will be the final insult.”

  Several forklifts raced past Tommy and the Senator, heading off toward the ramp of the plane. The two took an interest in the strange cargo going by—one barrel glowed the vinalon blue of labor-brigade jumpsuits, while another was the nightmare maroon of barbecue beef. When a forklift went past bearing fertilizer toilets, Tommy asked, “Just what kind of aid is this?”

  “What does the American say?” the Dear Leader asked Ga.

  Ga said, “They’re curious about the variety of aid to be found in our shipment.”

  The Dear Leader spoke to the Senator. “I assure you, the only items included are ones that might be needed by a nation plagued with social ills. Do you wish an inspection?”

  Tommy turned to the Senator. “You wanna inspect a forklift?” he asked.

  When the Senator hesitated, the Dear Leader called for Commander Park to stop one of the forklifts. Ga could see Comrade Buc approaching from the far side of the loitering crowds, but luckily, Park hailed a different forklift—yet this driver, terror on his face, pretended not to hear and drove on. Park hailed another one, and again, the driver feigned utter concentration on the path to the airplane. “Dak-Ho,” Park yelled after him. “I know that’s you. I know you heard me.”

  The Dear Leader laughed. He called to Park, “Try using some sweet talk.”

  It was hard to tell the emotion on Commander Park’s face, but when he hailed Comrade Buc, it was with authority, and Ga knew that Buc was the man who would stop.

  Not ten meters away, pallet hoisted high, Comrade Buc halted his forklift, and it would be clear to anyone who bothered to look upward that human shapes shifted inside.

  Commander Ga moved to the Senator, clapping a hand stiff on his back.

  The Senator gave him a hard look.

  Ga pointed at Buc’s forklift. “This will be an excellent batch of aid to examine, no?” he asked the Senator. “Much better than the contents of that forklift over there, yes?”

  It took the Senator a moment to process this. He pointed to the other forklift and asked the Dear Leader, “Is there some reason you don’t want us to inspect that one?”

  The Dear Leader smiled. “Examine any one you like.”

  As people began moving toward the forklift the Senator had selected, Brando lifted his nose in the air, and tail wagging, started barking at Comrade Buc’s forklift.

  “Never mind,” Ga called to Comrade Buc. “We don’t need you anymore.”

  Commander Park cocked his head at the barking dog.

  “No, hold on,” Park called to Buc, who stared away in an effort not to be recognized.

  Park kneeled down beside the dog and studied it. To Ga, he said, “These animals are supposedly good at detecting things. It’s said their noses have great strength.” He studied the dog’s posture, then Park looked between the dog’s ears and down the length of its nose, where he saw, as if in a gun sight, the barrels on Buc’s forklift. “Hmm,” Commander Park said.

  “Commander Park, get over here,” the Dear Leader called. “You’re going to love this.”

  Park took another moment to contemplate the situation, then called to Buc, “Don’t you go anywhere.”

  The Dear Leader called again. He was laughing.

  “Come on, Park,” he said. “We have need of a skill only you can provide.”

  Park and Ga walked toward the Dear Leader, Brando bounding at the end of his leash in the other direction.

  “They say that canines are particularly vicious animals,” Park said. “What do you think?”

  Ga answered, “I think they’re only as dangerous as their owners.”

  They approached the forklift where the Dear Leader stood with the Senator and Tommy, Wanda and the Girl Rower now joining them. On the forklift’s pallet were two barrels and a stack of boxes, shrink-wrapped.

  “How can I be of service?” Park asked.

  “This is perfect,” the Dear Leader laughed. “This is too good to be true. It seems we have a box that needs to be opened.”

  Commander Park pulled a box cutter from his pocket.

  “What’s so
funny?” Tommy asked.

  Commander Park ran his razor down the box’s seam.

  Park said, “Because I’ve never actually used this thing on a box before.”

  The Dear Leader laughed all over again.

  Inside the box were bound volumes of the complete works of Kim Jong Il.

  The Dear Leader grabbed one, bent its spine open, then breathed deeply of the ink inside.

  The Girl Rower removed her sunglasses, her eyes looking deeply sedated. Squinting, she regarded the books, and it was with sudden horror that she recognized them. “No,” she said, looking as if she might be sick.

  Tommy pulled the lid off a barrel and scooped up a handful of rice.

  “This is short grain,” Tommy said. “Isn’t it Japan that grows short-grain rice, while Korea grows long?”

  Wanda adopted Dr. Song’s voice. “North Korean grains are the tallest-statured grains in the world.”

  The Dear Leader could tell from her tone that an insult was being done, but he didn’t know what kind. “Just where is Sun Moon?” he asked Ga. “Go see what could be taking her so long.”

  To buy some time, Ga spoke to the Senator. “Did Dr. Song not promise you in Texas that if you ever visited our great nation, the Dear Leader would inscribe his work to you?”

  The Senator smiled. “This might be an opportunity to test out that pen of peace.”

  “I’ve never signed one of my books before,” the Dear Leader said, both flattered and suspicious. “I suppose this is a special occasion.”

  “And Wanda,” Ga said. “You wanted one for your father, yes? And Tommy, weren’t you clamoring for a signed copy?”

  “I thought I’d never get the honor,” Tommy said.

  Commander Park turned toward Comrade Buc’s forklift.

  Brando was lunging on his rope.

  “Commander Park,” Ga called. “Come with me, let’s make sure everything’s okay with Sun Moon.”

  Park didn’t look back. “In a minute,” he said as he neared the forklift.

  Commander Ga saw how Buc’s hands were fear-gripped on the wheel, how the figures in those barrels were turning in the heat and worn-out air. Ga got low beside Brando. He slipped the rope from the dog’s neck and held him by a fold of skin.

  “But Commander Park,” Ga said.

  Park paused and looked back.

  Commander Ga said to him, “Hunt.”

  “Hunt?” Park asked.

  But it was too late, the dog was already upon him, seizing an arm in its jaws.

  The Senator turned in horror to see one of his prized Catahoula dogs tearing through the tendons of a man’s forearm. The Senator then passed an appraising gaze upon his hosts, the look of dark discovery on his face suggesting that he now understood there was nothing that North Korea wouldn’t eventually make maniacal and vicious.

  The Girl Rower screamed, and at the sight of Commander Park slashing the dog, at the great gouts of dog blood that began to fly, she ran hysterically toward the plane. Arms pumping, her drugged athlete’s body, dormant underground an entire year, answered the call.

  Soon, the dog’s pelt was black with blood. When Commander Park slashed again, the dog shifted its bite to Park’s ankle, where you could tell the teeth had gotten to bone.

  “Shoot it,” Park shouted. “Shoot the damn thing.”

  MPSS agents in the crowd drew their Tokarev pistols. That’s when citizens began running in all directions. Comrade Buc sped away, weaving through the U.S. security agents who were racing to secure the Senator and his delegation.

  The Dear Leader stood alone, confused. He’d been halfway through a long book inscription. Even though he stared at the bloody spectacle, he seemed not to recognize an event that occurred without his authorization.

  “What is it, Ga?” the Dear Leader asked. “What’s happening?”

  “It’s an episode of violence, sir,” Ga told him.

  The Dear Leader dropped the peace pen. “Sun Moon,” he said. He turned to look at the pavilion, then dug the silver key from his pocket. He began trotting as fast as he could toward it, tummy bouncing inside his gray jumpsuit. Several of Commander Park’s men followed behind, and Ga fell in with them.

  Behind them a protracted attack, now gone to the ground, a dog that wouldn’t relinquish.

  At the changing station, the Dear Leader paused, uncertain, as if he had approached the real Temple of Pohyon, bastion against the Japanese during the Imjin Wars, home of the great warrior monk Sosan, resting place of the Annals of the Yi Dynasty.

  “Sun Moon,” he called. He knocked on the door. “Sun Moon.”

  He slid his key into the lock, seeming not to hear pistol shots behind him and a dog’s final death howl. Inside, the little room was empty. Hanging from the wall were three choson-ots—white and blue and red. On the floor was her guitar case. The Dear Leader bent to open it. Inside was a guitar. He thumbed a string.

  The Dear Leader turned to Ga. “Where is she?” he asked. “Where did she go?”

  Ga said, “And what about her children?”

  “That’s right,” he said. “Her children are also missing. But where could she be with none of her clothes?”

  The Dear Leader touched all three dresses, as if verifying that they were genuine. Then he sniffed a sleeve. “Yes,” he said. “These are hers.” On the cement, he noticed something. When he picked it up, he saw it was two photographs, clipped back to back. The first showed a young man, dark uncertainty on his face. When the Dear Leader flipped to the other picture, he saw a broken human figure on the ground, dusted over with dirt, mouth open and spilling with dirt.

  The Dear Leader recoiled, tossing the pictures aside.

  He stepped outside, where you could hear the jet’s engines ramping, its hydraulic cargo bay closing. The Dear Leader looked once around the building. Inexplicably, he glanced upward to the clouds.

  “But her clothes are here,” he said. “Her red dress is right here.”

  Comrade Buc arrived and dismounted his forklift. “I heard gunfire,” he said.

  “Sun Moon’s missing,” Ga informed him.

  “But that’s impossible,” Buc said. “Where could she be?”

  The Dear Leader turned to Ga. “She didn’t say anything, did she, about going someplace?”

  “She said nothing, nothing at all,” Ga said.

  Commander Park joined them. He was limping. “That dog,” he said and took a big breath. He’d lost a lot of blood.

  The Dear Leader said, “Sun Moon’s missing.”

  Park leaned over, breathing heavily. He placed his good hand on his good knee. “Detain all the citizens,” he told his men. “Confirm their IDs. Canvass the grounds, sweep all the abandoned aircraft, and get someone dredging that shit pond.”

  The American jet began to accelerate down the runway, the noise of its engines making it impossible to be heard. For a minute, they stood there, waiting until they could speak. By the time the plane had lifted and begun to bank, Park had figured things out.

  “Let me go get you a bandage,” Buc said to Commander Park.

  “No,” Park said, looking at the ground. “No one’s going anywhere.” To the Dear Leader, he said, “We must assume that Commander Ga had a hand in this.”

  “Commander Ga?” the Dear Leader asked. He pointed. “Him?”

  “He was friends with the Americans,” Park said. “Now the Americans are gone. And Sun Moon is gone.”

  The Dear Leader looked up in an effort to locate the American plane, his eyes slowly panning the sky for it. Then he turned to Ga. On the Dear Leader’s face was a look of disbelief. His eyes roamed over all the options, all the impossible things that might have happened to Sun Moon. For a moment, the Dear Leader’s gaze went completely blank, and Ga knew the expression well. This was the face that Ga had shown the world, that of a boy who had swallowed the things that had happened to him, but who wouldn’t understand what they meant for a long, long time.

  “Is this true?” the
Dear Leader asked. “Out with the truth.”

  They were in the quiet now, where the sound of the plane used to be.

  “Now you know something about me,” Ga told the Dear Leader. “I’ve given you a piece of me, and now you know who I really am. And I know something of you.”

  “What are you talking about?” the Dear Leader asked. “Tell me where Sun Moon is.”

  “I’ve taken the ultimate from you,” Ga told him. “I’ve pulled the thread that will unravel you.”

  Commander Park stood upright, looking only partly renewed. He lifted his bloody box cutter.

  With a finger, the Dear Leader halted him.

  “You must speak the truth to me, son,” the Dear Leader told Ga in a voice that was slow and stern. “Did you do something with her?”

  “I’ve given you the scar that’s on my heart,” Ga told him. “I will never see Sun Moon again. And neither will you. From now on, we’ll be like brothers that way.”

  Commander Park gave a signal, and two of his men took hold of Ga, their thumbs sinking deep into his biceps.

  “My boys in Division 42 will get this straightened out,” Park told the Dear Leader. “Can I give him to the Pubyok?”

  But the Dear Leader didn’t answer. He turned to look again at the changing station, at the simple little temple with the dresses inside.

  Commander Park took charge. “Take Ga to the Pubyok,” he told his men. “And you might as well grab the other drivers, too.”

  “Wait,” Ga said. “Buc didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “That’s right,” Comrade Buc said. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Sorry,” Commander Park told Buc. “But the amount of pain that will come of this, it’ll be too much for a single man to bear. Even when we spread it around to the rest of you, it might be too much.”