The Orphan Master's Son (72 page)

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.”

“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.