Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

A doctor approached Jun Do with a unit of blood. The doctor searched for a vein in the wounded arm, but Jun Do stopped him. “If you put the blood in this arm, won’t it all leak out?”

“Look, I only treat heroes,” the doctor said. “So I know my way around blood. And where it’s leaking from is exactly where it should go.” Then he ran the line into a vein behind the knuckle, taping it off and handing the bag to Jun Do to hold high with his good arm. The doctor unwrapped the bloody T-shirt, and there was no denying the wound. The shark’s teeth, like flakes of milk-glass, had gone all the way, and when the troughs of flesh were irrigated, visible at the base of each of them was the white slick of arm bone.

To the reporter and minister, Jun Do gave a brief summary of his encounter with American aggression. They didn’t ask many questions. It was corroboration they seemed interested in. Suddenly, before him was the older man with the flattop and busted hands who had taken away the Second Mate. He wore the same gray suit and up close Jun Do could see his eyelids were very heavy, making it look as if he was resting his eyes while he spoke.

“I’ll need to confirm the details of your story,” he said, and flashed a silver badge that bore the name of no agency. There was only an image of a thick block wall, floating above the ground.

Jun Do was led down a path, his good arm holding the blood bag, the other in a sling. Ahead was the Captain, who was speaking with the wife of the Second Mate. They stood next to a pile of bricks, and she was not weeping. She eyed the old man and then Jun Do, then she turned to the Captain, who put an arm around her to console her. Jun Do looked back to the commotion at the dock, his mates gesturing large as they recounted the story, but they suddenly seemed very far away.

The old man took him to the abandoned cannery. All that was left of the high-ceilinged factory were the giant steam chambers, the lonely gas manifolds, and the rusty tracks embedded in the cement floor. Shafts of light came down through holes in the roof, and here was a folding table and two chairs.

On the table was a thermos. The old man sat and slowly unscrewed its raspy lid with hands that worked as if through heavy mittens. Again he seemed to rest his eyes by closing them, but he was just old.

“So are you an inspector or something?” Jun Do asked.

“What is the answer to that?” the old man mused. “I was very reckless in the war. And after we won, I was still ready for anything.” He leaned forward into the light, and Jun Do could see there were many scars in his short gray hair. “I would have called myself an inspector back then.”

Jun Do decided to play it safe. “It was great men like you who won the war and drove out the imperial aggressors.”

The old man poured tea into the lid of the thermos, but he did not drink it—he just held the steaming cup in both hands, slowly turning it. “It’s a sad story, this young fisherman friend of yours. The funny thing is that he really was a hero. I confirmed the story myself. He really did fight off armed Americans with only a fishing knife. Crazy stuff like that gains you respect but loses friends. I know all about it. Perhaps that’s what happened between the crew and the young mate.”

Jun Do said, “The Second Mate didn’t ask for the Americans to come back. He wasn’t looking for trouble, let alone death. You did hear how he was eaten alive by sharks, right?”

The old man didn’t say anything.

“Shouldn’t you have a pencil or some paper or something?”

“We picked up your friend in a raft this morning. This was even before you radioed in about your so-called attack. He had plenty of cigarettes, but he had fumbled his matches and they were wet. They said your friend had been crying over what he’d done, that he couldn’t stop.”

Jun Do’s mind turned on that. That poor, stupid boy, he thought. Jun Do had thought the two of them were in this together, but now he understood he was alone, and all he had was the story.

“I wish that lie you just told were true,” Jun Do said, “because then the Second Mate would be alive, then he wouldn’t have died in front of all of us. Then the Captain wouldn’t have to tell his wife that she’ll never see him again.”

“He’ll never be seen again, you can count on that,” the old man said. Again it looked like he’d gone to sleep. “Don’t you want to know the reasons he defected? I believe he mentioned your name.”

“The Second Mate was a friend and a hero,” Jun Do said. “You should maybe show some respect for the dead.”

The old man stood. “What I should maybe do is confirm your story,” he said, and the first assault that followed was brief and frontal—several snapping blows to the face, and with one arm hurt and the other holding the blood bag, there was nothing for Jun Do to do but take it.

“Tell me whose idea it was,” the old man said. He struck Jun Do once on each collarbone. “Why didn’t you launch him farther south, closer to the DMZ?” Jun Do was somehow trapped in the chair, and two chopping blows to the floater ribs anchored him for good. “Why didn’t more of you defect? Or were you casting him away?” In quick succession, pain flashed in his neck, nose, and ear, and then his eyes didn’t seem to work right.

“The Americans came back,” Jun Do said. “They were blaring music. They wore street clothes, including shoes with silver swooshes. One of them threatened to burn the ship. He had a lighter with a cruise missile on it. They had made fun of us because we didn’t have a toilet but now they made fun of us because we did.”

The old man punched Jun Do directly in the breastplate, and in the fire of his new tattoo, he felt Sun Moon’s face as a burning outline over his heart. The old man stopped to pour more tea, but he did not drink. He just warmed his hands around the cup. Jun Do now understood how it would go. In the military, his pain mentor was Kimsan. The whole first week, they sat at a table, not unlike this one, and contemplated a candle burning between them. There was the flame, small and hot at its tip. There was the glow, warm on their faces. Then there was the darkness beyond the glow. Never let pain push you into the darkness , Kimsan said. There you are nobody and you are alone. Once you turn from the flame , it is over .

The old man began again, this time asking not about the Second Mate in the raft, but the Second Mate on the Junma , about how many sharks, how high the seas, whether the American rifles were on safety. The old man was pacing himself, dealing long, slow strings of measured blows, to the cheeks and mouth and ears, switching to the soft body when his hands seemed to hurt. In the candle’s flame , the fingertip hurts , though the whole rest of the body is in the warm glow of its light. Keep the pain in the fingertip and your body in the glow . Jun Do put up his partitions—a strike to the shoulder must hurt only the shoulder and he mentally cordoned that off from the rest of the body. And when the strikes came to the face, Jun Do would adjust his head as the strike was delivered, so no two landed in the same place. Keep the flame on the fingers , keep the fingers in motion , let the rest of you relax in the glow .

A wince of pain crossed the old man’s face and he stopped to stretch his back. Bending this way and that, he said, “There’s a lot of big talk about the war. Practically everyone was named a hero. Even trees have been named heroes. It’s true. Everyone in my division is a war hero, except for the new guys, of course. Maybe your friend became a hero, and you didn’t like that. Maybe you wanted to be one, too.”