Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

Ga wanted to light the candle, to see if she was angry or afraid. “If I’d known—”

“Don’t interrupt me,” she told him. “I won’t be able to say these things if you stop me. He doesn’t know my mother’s prized possession was a steel zither. It had seventeen strings, and you could see yourself in the black lacquer of its finish. The night before my younger sister died, my father filled the room with the steam of boiling herbs, while my mother flooded us with sanjo music, fierce through the darkness, sweat coming off her, the metal strings flashing. It was a sound meant to challenge the light that come morning would take her little girl. The Dear Leader doesn’t know that I reach for my sister at night. Not finding her, every time, wakes me. I would never tell him how that music is still stuck in my head.

“The Dear Leader knows my basic story, the facts of it. He knows my grandmother was taken to Japan to serve as a comfort woman. But he could never understand what she went through, why she came home having learned only songs of despair. Because she couldn’t speak of those years, it was important that her daughters know these songs. And she had to convey them without the lyrics—after the war, just knowing Japanese could get you killed. She taught the musical notes, though, and how to transfer to the notes the feeling of the missing words. That’s what Japan had taught her to do—to make the pluck of a string contain a missing thing, to store in a struck chord what had been swallowed by war. The Dear Leader doesn’t understand that the skill he prizes me for is this.

“He doesn’t know that when he first heard me singing, it was to my mother, locked in another train car, a song to keep her from despairing. There were hundreds of us on a relocation train to a redeemability camp, all with freshly bleeding ears. This was after my older sister was siphoned to Pyongyang for her beauty. This was after we’d agreed as a family that my father would try to smuggle out my little sister. This was after the attempt failed, after we’d lost her, after my father had been labeled a defector and we’d become the family of a defector, my mother and I. It was a long journey, the train moving so slowly that crows landed on the roof of the boxcar, where they paced back and forth between the vent holes to stare down at us like we were crickets they couldn’t quite get. My mother was in another boxcar. Talking wasn’t allowed, but singing was. I would sing ‘Arirang’ to let her know I was okay. She would return the song to say she was still with me.

“Our train pulled onto a side track to let another pass. It turned out to be the Dear Leader’s bulletproof train, which stopped so the two conductors could discuss the tracks ahead. Rumors spread through the boxcars, a hushed panic at what was about to befall us. People’s voices rose, speculating on what was happening to those in other boxcars, whether people would be singled out, so I sang, loud as I could, hoping my mother might hear me above the sounds of anguish.

“Suddenly, the door to our train car opened, and the guards beat a man to his knees. When they told him to bow down, we all followed suit. And there, backlit by the bright light, appeared the Dear Leader.

“ Did I hear a songbird? he asked. Tell me , who among us is this forlorn bird?

“No one spoke.

“ Who has taken our national melody and adorned it with such emotion? the Dear Leader asked us, pacing through our kneeling ranks. What person can so distill the human heart and pour it into the vessel of patriotic zeal? Please , someone , finish the song. How can it exist without an ending?

“From my knees, tears falling, I started to sing:

“ Arirang , Arirang , ah-rah-ree-yoh , I am crossing Arirang Hill .

I believed you when you told me

We were going to Arirang Hill for a spring picnic .

Arirang , your feet will fail you before you take ten steps from me .

“The Dear Leader closed his eyes and smiled. I didn’t know which was worse—to displease him or to please him. All I knew was that my mother would not survive without me.

“ Arirang , Arirang , ah-rah-ree-yoh , Arirang all alone ,

With a bottle of rice wine hidden under my skirt .

I looked for you , my love , in our secret spot , in Odong , Odong Forest .

Arirang , Arirang , give me back my love .

“When I was finished, the Dear Leader seemed not to hear the faint song answering back.

“I was taken to his personal train car, where the windows were so thick that the light through them was green and warped. Here, he asked me to recite lines from a story he had typed out. It was called ‘Tyrants Asunder.’ How could he fail to smell the urine on me, or the stink of hunger that creeps up your throat and infects your breath? I spoke the words, though they had no meaning for me in that state. I could barely finish a sentence without succumbing.

“Then the Dear Leader called out Bravo and showered me with applause. Tell me , he said. Tell me you will memorize my lines , say you will accept the role .

“How could he know that I didn’t really understand what a movie was, that I’d only heard broadcasts of revolutionary operas? How could I know that on the Dear Leader’s train there were other cars whose construction was for propositions much less noble than auditions?

“Here, the Dear Leader gestured large, as if we were now in a theater. Of course , such is the subtlety of this art form , he added, that my lines will become yours. The people will see you fill the screen and remember only the emotion of your voice bringing the words to life .

“The train beneath me started moving.

“ Please! I called out, it was almost a scream. My mother must be safe .

“ Certainly , he said. I’ll have someone check on her .

“I don’t know what came over me. I raised my eyes to his. Safe forever , I said.

“He smiled with the surprise of new appreciation. Safe , forever , he agreed.

“I saw that he responded to conditions. He spoke the language of rules.

“ Then I’ll do it , I told him. I’ll perform your story .

“This is the moment I was ‘discovered.’ How fondly the Dear Leader recalls it, as if through his keen insight and wisdom, I was saved from some destructive natural force, such as a landslide. It was a story he loved to recount over the years, when we were alone in his opera box or sailing through the sky on his personal gondola, this story of fortune bringing our two trains together. He never meant it as a threat to me, to remind me of how far I had to fall. Rather, it was a reminder of the forever of us.

“Through the green of the window, I watched the train bearing my mother recede.

“ I knew you’d agree , the Dear Leader said. I had a feeling. I’ll cancel the other actress right away. In the meantime , let’s get you some proper clothes. And that ear of yours could use some attention. ”

In the dark, Commander Ga said the word “cancel.”

“Cancel,” Sun Moon repeated. “How many times have I thought of that other girl? How could the Dear Leader know that my arms still go cold for her?”

“What happened to her?” Ga asked.

“You know what happened to her,” she said.

They were quiet a moment.

“There is another thing the Dear Leader doesn’t know about me,” she said. “But it’s something he’ll soon find out.”