Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

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.