by Adam Johnson
“Dear Leader,” Buc said. “It’s me, your closest comrade. Who gets your cognac from France and your sea urchin from Hokkaido? Who has procured for you every brand of cigarette in the world? I’m loyal. I have a family.” Here Buc stepped close. “I don’t defect,” he said. “I never defected.”
But the Dear Leader wasn’t listening. He stared instead at Commander Ga.
“I don’t understand who you are,” the Dear Leader said to him. “You killed my nemesis. You escaped Prison 33. You could have gotten away for good. But you came here. What kind of person would do that? Who would make their way to me, who would throw away his own life, just to spoil mine?”
Ga looked up to the jet trail overhead and followed it toward the horizon. A wave of satisfaction ran through him. A day wasn’t just a match you struck after all the others had gone out. In a day, Sun Moon would be in America. Tomorrow would find her in a place where she could perform a song she’d waited a lifetime to sing. From now on, it would no longer be about survival and endurance. And this new day, they were embarking on it together.
Returning the Dear Leader’s gaze, Ga felt no fear looking into the eyes of the man who would get the last word. In fact, Ga was oddly carefree. I’d have felt this my whole life, Ga thought, if you had never existed. Ga felt his own sense of purpose, he was under his own command now. What a strange, new feeling it was. Perhaps this was what Wanda had in mind when she stood before that expanse of Texas sky and asked if he felt free. It could be felt, he now knew. His fingers were buzzing with it, it rattled his breathing, it allowed him to suddenly see all the lives he might have lived, and that feeling didn’t go away when Commander Park’s men knocked him to the ground and dragged him by his heels toward a waiting crow.
CITIZENS, gather ’round your loudspeakers! It is time for the final installment of this year’s Best North Korean Story, though it might as well be titled the Greatest North Korean Story of All Time! Still, in this last episode, ugliness makes its inevitable appearance, citizens, so we recommend you not listen alone. Seek the comfort of fellow factory workers. Embrace the stranger in your subway car. We also suggest you protect our youngest comrades from today’s content, as they are unaware of the existence of human injustice. Yes, today the Americans let loose the hounds. So sweep sawdust from the mill-house floors, gather cotton from the machine-loom motors—use anything you can find to pack the tender ears of the innocent.
At last, the moment had arrived to return the poor American Rower Girl, rescued from dangerous seas by our brave fishing fleet. You remember well the American’s pitiful appearance before Sun Moon beautified her. This day the Girl Rower wore her hair braided long by Sun Moon herself. True, no choson-ot, however golden, could hide those slouching shoulders and ungainly breasts, but the Girl Rower at least looked more fit since her diet had been balanced by healthy portions of flavorful and nutritious sorghum. And after the Dear Leader delivered her a stiff lecture on chastity, she appeared instantly more womanly, her face sobered, her posture erect.
Still, her departure was a sad one, as she was returning to America and a life of illiteracy, canines, and multicolored condoms. At least she had her notebooks, copied full of the Dear Leader’s wisdoms and witticisms, to show her the way. And we must admit: she belonged with her people, even in a land where nothing is free—not seaweed, not suntanning, not even a basic blood transfusion.
Imagine the fanfare with which our Most Reverend General Kim Jong Il received the Americans who flew to Pyongyang to retrieve their young Rower Girl. In the spirit of good cooperation, the Dear Leader was willing to set aside for a day memories of the American napalming of Pyongyang, the American bombing of the Haesang Dam, the American machine-gunning of civilians at No Gun Ri. For the good of mutual friendship, the Dear Leader decided not to bring up what American collaborators did at the Daejeon Prison or during the Jeju uprising, let alone the atrocities at Ganghwa and Dae Won Valley. He wasn’t even going to mention the Bodo League Massacre or the press-ganging of our prisoners at the Pusan Perimeter.
No, better to set the past aside and think only of dancing boys, animated accordion play, and the joys of generosity, for this day was about more than the vim of good-natured cultural exchange: the Dear Leader’s agenda included a humanitarian mission of delivering food aid to the one in six Americans who goes hungry each day.
At first, the visiting Americans pretended to be pleasant enough, but they sure did bring along a lot of dogs! Remember that in America, canines get regular lessons in obedience, while the people, regular citizens like you and your neighbor, receive none. Should it be a surprise then that after the Americans had what they wanted—the return of their homely compatriot, and enough food to feed their poor—they showed their appreciation through cowardly aggression?
Yes, citizens, it was a sneak attack!
At the uttering of a coded word, the dogs all bared their teeth and set upon their Korean hosts. Then hot lead began blazing from American pistols toward their noble Korean counterparts. And that’s when a team of American commandos grabbed Sun Moon, and roughly handling her, dragged her toward their Yankee jet plane! Did the Americans elaborately plan to steal the greatest actress in the world from our humble nation? Or did the sudden sight of her, transcendently beautiful in a red choson-ot, compel them to take her on the spot? But where was Comrade Buc? the astute citizen must be asking. Wasn’t Comrade Buc near Sun Moon’s side to defend her? The answer, citizens, is that Buc is no longer your comrade. He never was.
Steel yourselves for what happens next, citizens, and do not self-combust from your need of vengeance. Channel your outrage into effort, citizens, by doubling your output quotas! Let the fire of your anger stoke the furnaces of productivity!
When the Americans seized our national actress, the despicable Buc, fearing for his own safety, simply handed her over. Then he turned and ran.
“Shoot me,” Sun Moon shouted as she was hauled away. “Shoot me now, comrades, for I do not wish to live without the benevolent guidance of the greatest of all leaders, Kim Jong Il.”
Marshaling his military training, the Dear Leader sprinted into action, chasing the cowards who had stolen our national treasure. Into the onslaught of gunfire, the Dear Leader ran. Dove after dove flew into the path of the bullets, each bursting with the downy glow of patriotic sacrifice!
And here we have the coward Commander Ga—imposter, orphan, practitioner of poor citizenship—standing idly by. But witnessing the Dear Leader fend off dogs and dodge bullets, a spirit rose in this simple man, a revolutionary zeal he had never quite known. By viewing firsthand an act of supreme bravery, Ga, the lowest member of society, was moved to similarly serve the highest of socialist ideals.
When an American GI shouted “Free adoptions!” and scooped up an armload of young gymnasts, Commander Ga sprang into action. Despite lacking the Dear Leader’s powers of dog defense, he did know taekwondo. “Charyeot!” he yelled to the Americans. That got their attention. “Junbi,” he then said. “Sijak!” he shouted. That’s when the kicks and punches began. Fists flying, he raced after the retreating Americans, fighting his way through jet wash, copper-jacket bullets, and ivory incisors to the accelerating aircraft.
Though the jet’s engines screamed with takeoff power, Commander Ga summoned his Korean fortitude, and using Juche strength, he chased the plane down and leaped up to its wing. As the jet rose from the runway, rising over Pyongyang, Ga pulled himself up and fought the harsh winds to the windows, where through the glass, he saw the Girl Rower laugh as the Americans in celebration blared South Korean pop music and, garment by garment, stripped Sun Moon of her modesty.
Dipping his finger in a bloody wound, Commander Ga wrote inspirational slogans on the plane’s windows, and to give Sun Moon some measure of resolve, he wrote in red, backward, a reminder of the Dear Leader’s eternal love for her, nay, of his love for every citizen of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea! Through the windows, the Americans made angry gesture
s at Commander Ga, but none had the guts to climb out on the wing and fight him like a man. Instead, they accelerated the plane to astounding speeds, executing emergency maneuvers and aerial acrobatics to shake loose their tenacious guest, but no barrel roll was going to stop a determined Commander Ga! He dropped low and gripped the wing’s leading edge as the plane rose over the blessed mountains of Myohyang and over sacred Lake Chon, nestled in the frozen peaks of Mount Paektu, but finally he lost consciousness over the garden city of Chongjin.
Only the powerful reach of North Korean radar allows us to tell the rest of the story.
In the cold, thin air, Commander Ga’s frozen fingers kept a firm grip, yet the canines had taken their toll. Our comrade was fading. That’s when Sun Moon, hair disheveled, face bruised, came to the window and with the power of her patriotic voice sang to him, repeating verses of “Our Father Is the Marshal” over and over until, at just the right moment in the song, Commander Ga muttered, “Eternal is the Marshal’s flame.” Wind pulled freezing strings of blood from his lips, but the good Commander roused, repeating “Eternal is the Marshal’s flame” as he stood.
Braving the great winds, he made his way to the window, where Sun Moon pointed to the sea below. There, he saw what she saw: an American aircraft carrier aggressively patrolling our sovereign waters. He also saw a chance to finally evade the ghosts of past acts of cowardice. Commander Ga gave Sun Moon a crisp, final salute, then dove off the wing, making a missile of himself as he barreled downward, sailing toward the conning towers of capitalism, where, in the bridge, an American captain was surely plotting the next illegal sneak attack.
Do not imagine Ga falling forever, citizens. Picture Ga in a cloud of white. See him in a perfect light, glowing like an icy mountain flower. Yes, picture a flower towering white, so tall that it reaches down to pick you. Yes, here is Commander Ga, picked in his prime and lifted high. And there emerge—all is shining, all is bright—the clasping arms of Kim Il Sung himself.
When one Glorious Leader hands you to the next, citizens, you truly live forever. This is how an average man becomes a hero, a martyr, an inspiration to all. So do not weep, citizens, for look: a bronze bust of Commander Ga is already being placed in the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery! Dry your eyes, comrades, for generations of orphans to come will now be blessed with the name of both a hero and a martyr. Forever, Commander Ga Chol Chun. In this way, you’ll live forever.
FOR STEPHANIE—
my sun,
my moon,
my star and
satellite
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Support for this book was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Whiting Foundation, and the Stanford Creative Writing Program. Portions of this book first appeared in the following publications: Barcelona Review, Electric Literature, Faultline, Fourteen Hills Review, Granta, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Playboy, Southern Indiana Review, Yalobusha Review, and ZYZZYVA. The author is also indebted to the UCSF Kalmanovitz Medical Library, where much of this book was written.
Thanks to my traveling companions in North Korea: Dr. Patrick Xiaoping Wang, Willard Chi, and the esteemed Dr. Joseph Man-Kyung Ha. Kyungmi Chun, Stanford’s Korean Studies Librarian, proved especially helpful, as was Cheryl McGrath of Harvard’s Widener Library. The support of the Stanford writing faculty has been invaluable to me, particularly Eavan Boland, Elizabeth Tallent, and Tobias Wolff. I’m grateful for Scott Hutchins, Ed Schwarzschild, Todd Pierce, Skip Horack, and Neil Connelly, all of whom read versions of this book and responded with sage advice.
This novel could have no finer editor and champion than David Ebershoff. Warren Frazier, as always, is the prince of literary agents. Special thanks go to Phil Knight, who made a student of his teacher. Special thanks also to Dr. Patricia Johnson, Dr. James Harrell, and the Honorable Gayle Harrell. My wife lends my work inspiration and my children its purpose, so thank you Stephanie, and thank you Jupiter, James Geronimo, and Justice Everlasting.
Also by ADAM JOHNSON
EMPORIUM
PARASITES LIKE US
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ADAM JOHNSON teaches creative writing at Stanford University. His fiction has appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, Harper’s, Tin House, Granta, and Playboy, as well as in The Best American Short Stories. His other works include Emporium, a short-story collection, and the novel Parasites Like Us. He lives in San Francisco.