Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

“Anything you want to show me,” he said. “Whatever makes you smile.”

“Enough of this,” Sun Moon said. “I did what you asked, I put you in my heart. It’s the only thing I know, not to separate, for everyone to stay together, no matter what.”

“You’re in my heart, too,” Ga said, and at the sound of Comrade Buc’s forklift, he pounded the lids onto the barrels.

The dog found this development quite distressing. Whimpering, Brando circled the barrels, looking for a way in.

Into the fourth barrel, Commander Ga shook out the remaining contents of the guitar case. Photographs fluttered inside, thousands of them, all the lost souls of Prison 33, each with names, dates of entry, dates of death.

Ga swung open the back wall of the temple, then guided Buc in with hand signals.

The color was gone from Buc’s face. “Are we really doing this?” he asked.

“Swing wide around the crowd,” Ga told him. “Make it look like you’re coming from the other direction.”

Buc lifted the pallet and shifted into reverse, but he held the forklift there.

“You’re going to confess, right?” Buc asked. “The Dear Leader’s going to know this is your doing?”

“Trust me, he’ll know,” Ga said.

When Buc backed into the light, Ga was horrified to see how clear it was that people were in the barrels, at least the outlines of them, like willow worms shifting in their white cocoons.

“I think we forgot air holes,” Buc said.

“Just go,” Ga told him.

Out on the runway, Ga found the Dear Leader and Commander Park orchestrating teams of children rolling barrels onto forklift pallets. The children’s motions were choreographed, but without the music of a band behind them, the pantomime resembled the tractor-assembly robot on display at the Museum of Socialist Progress.

With them was the Girl Rower in her golden dress. She stood silently by Wanda’s side, wearing heavy sunglasses behind which her eyes could not be seen. It gave her the effect of looking deeply drugged. Or maybe, Ga thought, that surgery had been done to her eyes.

The Dear Leader came near, and Ga could see that his smile had returned.

“Where is our Sun Moon?” he asked.

“You know her,” Ga said. “She must look perfect. She’ll fuss until perfection is found.”

The Dear Leader nodded at the truth of that. “At least the Americans will soon see her undeniable beauty as she bids farewell to our gruff visitor. Side by side, there will be no question of who is superior. At least I will have that satisfaction.”

“When do I return the dog?” Ga asked.

“That, Commander Ga, will be the final insult.”

Several forklifts raced past Tommy and the Senator, heading off toward the ramp of the plane. The two took an interest in the strange cargo going by—one barrel glowed the vinalon blue of labor-brigade jumpsuits, while another was the nightmare maroon of barbecue beef. When a forklift went past bearing fertilizer toilets, Tommy asked, “Just what kind of aid is this?”

“What does the American say?” the Dear Leader asked Ga.

Ga said, “They’re curious about the variety of aid to be found in our shipment.”

The Dear Leader spoke to the Senator. “I assure you, the only items included are ones that might be needed by a nation plagued with social ills. Do you wish an inspection?”

Tommy turned to the Senator. “You wanna inspect a forklift?” he asked.

When the Senator hesitated, the Dear Leader called for Commander Park to stop one of the forklifts. Ga could see Comrade Buc approaching from the far side of the loitering crowds, but luckily, Park hailed a different forklift—yet this driver, terror on his face, pretended not to hear and drove on. Park hailed another one, and again, the driver feigned utter concentration on the path to the airplane. “Dak-Ho,” Park yelled after him. “I know that’s you. I know you heard me.”

The Dear Leader laughed. He called to Park, “Try using some sweet talk.”

It was hard to tell the emotion on Commander Park’s face, but when he hailed Comrade Buc, it was with authority, and Ga knew that Buc was the man who would stop.

Not ten meters away, pallet hoisted high, Comrade Buc halted his forklift, and it would be clear to anyone who bothered to look upward that human shapes shifted inside.

Commander Ga moved to the Senator, clapping a hand stiff on his back.

The Senator gave him a hard look.

Ga pointed at Buc’s forklift. “This will be an excellent batch of aid to examine, no?” he asked the Senator. “Much better than the contents of that forklift over there, yes?”

It took the Senator a moment to process this. He pointed to the other forklift and asked the Dear Leader, “Is there some reason you don’t want us to inspect that one?”

The Dear Leader smiled. “Examine any one you like.”

As people began moving toward the forklift the Senator had selected, Brando lifted his nose in the air, and tail wagging, started barking at Comrade Buc’s forklift.

“Never mind,” Ga called to Comrade Buc. “We don’t need you anymore.”

Commander Park cocked his head at the barking dog.

“No, hold on,” Park called to Buc, who stared away in an effort not to be recognized.

Park kneeled down beside the dog and studied it. To Ga, he said, “These animals are supposedly good at detecting things. It’s said their noses have great strength.” He studied the dog’s posture, then Park looked between the dog’s ears and down the length of its nose, where he saw, as if in a gun sight, the barrels on Buc’s forklift. “Hmm,” Commander Park said.

“Commander Park, get over here,” the Dear Leader called. “You’re going to love this.”

Park took another moment to contemplate the situation, then called to Buc, “Don’t you go anywhere.”

The Dear Leader called again. He was laughing.

“Come on, Park,” he said. “We have need of a skill only you can provide.”

Park and Ga walked toward the Dear Leader, Brando bounding at the end of his leash in the other direction.

“They say that canines are particularly vicious animals,” Park said. “What do you think?”

Ga answered, “I think they’re only as dangerous as their owners.”

They approached the forklift where the Dear Leader stood with the Senator and Tommy, Wanda and the Girl Rower now joining them. On the forklift’s pallet were two barrels and a stack of boxes, shrink-wrapped.

“How can I be of service?” Park asked.

“This is perfect,” the Dear Leader laughed. “This is too good to be true. It seems we have a box that needs to be opened.”

Commander Park pulled a box cutter from his pocket.

“What’s so funny?” Tommy asked.

Commander Park ran his razor down the box’s seam.

Park said, “Because I’ve never actually used this thing on a box before.”

The Dear Leader laughed all over again.

Inside the box were bound volumes of the complete works of Kim Jong Il.

The Dear Leader grabbed one, bent its spine open, then breathed deeply of the ink inside.

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.”