Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

“One in six,” Commander Park said.

“One in six Americans goes hungry each day,” the Dear Leader echoed. “The blues is for violence, too. Commander Park, when did a citizen of Pyongyang last commit a violent crime?”

“Seven years ago,” Commander Park said.

“Seven long years,” the Dear Leader said. “Yet in America’s capital, five thousand black men languish in prison due to violence. Mind you, Senator, your prison system is the envy of the world—state-of-the-art confinement, total surveillance, three million inmates strong! Yet you use it for no social good. The imprisoned citizen in no way motivates the free. And the labor of the condemned does not power the machine of national need.”

The Senator cleared his throat. “As Dr. Song would say, This is most enlightening. ”

“You tire of social theory?” The Dear Leader nodded, as if he’d expected more from his American visitor. “Then I give you Sun Moon.”

Sun Moon kneeled down upon the cement runway and placed the guitar on its back before her. In the shade of those who closed the circle around her, she stared silently down at her guitar , as if awaiting some far-off inspiration.

“Sing,” Commander Park whispered. With the toe of his boot, he tapped her in the small of the back. From Sun Moon came a gasp of fear. “Sing,” he said.

Brando growled at the end of his rope.

Sun Moon began playing the neck of the guitar , fretting with the tips of her fingers and plucking with the quill of an eagle-owl feather. Each note sounded discordant from the next, eerie and alone. Finally, in the plaintive rasp of a sanjo nomad, she began to sing of a boy who wandered too far for his parents to find him.

Many citizens leaned in, trying to place the tune.

Sun Moon sang, “A cold wind rose and said, Come , orphan , sleep in my billowing white sheets. ”

From this line, the citizens began to recognize the song and the fairy tale it came from, yet none sang the response, “No, orphan child, do not let yourself freeze.” It was a song taught to all the children in the capital, one designed to make some merriment of all the befuddled orphans who scurried through Pyongyang’s streets. Sun Moon sang on, with the crowd clearly unhappy that such a gay song, a children’s song, one that was ultimately about finding the fatherly love of the Dear Leader, should be so gleelessly sung.

Sun Moon sang, “Then a mineshaft called to the child, Come shelter in my depths. ”

In his mind, Ga heard the response, “Avoid the darkness, orphan child. Seek the light.”

Sun Moon sang, “Next a ghost whispered, Let me inside , orphan child , and I’ll warm you from within. ”

Fight the fever , orphan child , Ga thought. Do not die tonight .

“Sing it properly,” Commander Park demanded.

But Sun Moon carried on, singing in her melancholy way of the arrival of the Great Bear, of the Bear’s special language, of how he took up the orphan child and with his claws cracked the honeybees’ comb. Her voice was edged with the things the song had left out, like the sharpness of those claws, of the stinging swarm of bees. In the sonor of her singing could be heard the insatiability of the Bear, of its unrelenting, omnivorous appetite.

The men in the crowd didn’t shout, “Partake of the Great Bear’s honey!”

The women didn’t chorus, “Share the sweetness of his deeds!”

A shudder of great emotion ran through Commander Ga, but he could not tell why. Was it the song, the singer, that it was sung now and here, or was it the orphan at its center? He knew only that this was her honey, this was what she had to feed him.

By the time the song concluded, the Dear Leader’s demeanor had greatly changed. Gone was his breezy surface and his gestures of delight. His eyes had flattened, his cheeks gone slack.

His scientists reported that, after inspecting the radiation detector, they’d found it intact.

He motioned for Park to fetch the Girl Rower.

“Let’s get this over with, Senator,” the Dear Leader said. “The people of our nation wish to donate some food aid to the hungry citizens of yours. When that’s complete, you may repatriate your citizen and fly off to your more important business.”

When Ga had translated this, the Senator said, “Agreed.”

To Ga, the Dear Leader said only, “Tell your wife to get into red.”

If only the Dear Leader still had Dr. Song, Ga thought. Dr. Song, who moved so fluidly in such situations, for whom such scenes became simply ruffles, so easily smoothed over.

Wanda brushed past him, amazement on her face.

“What the fuck was that song about?” she asked.

“Me,” he told her, but he was off with the boy and the girl and his wife and his dog.

The Pohyon Temple, when they entered it, seemed worthy of prayer, for inside, Comrade Buc had placed a pallet decked with four empty barrels. “Don’t ask anything,” Sun Moon told her children as she tore off the barrels’ white lids. Commander Ga opened his guitar case and from it withdrew Sun Moon’s silver dress. “Leave on your own terms,” he told her, then he swept the girl up and into a barrel. Opening her palm, he placed into her hand the seeds from last night’s melon. The boy was next, and for him, Ga had the whittled trigger sticks, the thread, and the deadweight stone of the bird snare they’d made together.

He stared at the two of them, their heads poking up, forbidden any questions, not that they’d know the right ones to ask, not for a long time, anyway. Ga took a moment to marvel at them, at this rare, pure thing that was coming into being. It was suddenly so clear, everything. There was no such thing as abandonment, there were only people in impossible positions, people who had a best hope, or maybe only a sole hope. When the graver danger awaited, it wasn’t abandoning, it was saving. He’d been saved, he now saw. A beauty, his mother, a singer. Because of that, a terrible fate awaited—she hadn’t left him behind, she’d saved him from what was ahead. And this pallet, with its four white barrels, he saw it suddenly as the life raft they’d long dreamed of aboard the Junma , the thing that meant they wouldn’t go down with the ship. They’d once had to let it sail away empty, and here it had made its way back. Here it was for the most essential cargo. He reached out and ruffled the hair of these two confused kids who didn’t even know they were being rescued, let alone what from.

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.