Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

“I just told him that to keep him strong and focused,” Jun Do said. “The mission is always to stay alive.”

“My husband isn’t alive, is he? You’d tell me, right?”

“Yes, I’d tell you,” Jun Do said. “But no, he’s not alive.”

She looked in his eyes.

“My lullaby, could everybody hear that broadcast?”

“Anyone on the East Sea.”

“What about Pyongyang, could they hear it there?”

“No,” he said. “That’s too far, there’s mountains. The signal travels farther over water.”

“But anyone who was listening,” she said.

“Ships, navigation stations, naval craft, they all heard. And I’m sure he heard you, too.”

“In this dream of yours?”

“In my dream, yes,” Jun Do said. “The dream of him floating away, the bright lights, his radio. It’s as real as the sharks rising out of the dark water, as the teeth in my arm. I know one is real and one’s a dream, but I keep forgetting which is which, they’re both so true. I can’t tell anymore. I don’t know which one.”

“Choose the beautiful story, with the bright lights, the one where he can hear us,” she told him. “That’s the true one. Not the scary story, not the sharks.”

“But isn’t it more scary to be utterly alone upon the waters, completely cut off from everyone, no friends, no family, no direction, nothing but a radio for solace?”

She touched the side of his face. “That’s your story,” she said. “You’re trying to tell me your story, aren’t you?”

Jun Do stared at her.

“Oh, you poor boy,” she said. “You poor little boy. It doesn’t have to be that way. Come in off the water, things can be different. You don’t need a radio, I’m right here. You don’t have to choose the alone.”

She leaned in close and kissed him tenderly on the forehead and once on each cheek. She sat up and regarded him. She stroked his hand. When she leaned in again, moving as if to kiss him, she paused, staring at his chest.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s stupid,” she said. She covered her mouth.

“No it isn’t. Tell me.”

“I’m just used to looking down at my husband and seeing my face over his heart. I’ve never known anything different.”

When the shock-work whistles blew in the morning, and the housing block was a hive of loudspeakers, they went onto the roof to remove the antenna. The morning sun was flat and brilliant upon the waters, yet lacking the heat to revive the flies or the stink of dog waste. The dogs, which seemed to snap and herd one another all day, were cowered in a single, sleeping mass in the crisp morning air, their coats white with dew.

The Second Mate’s wife walked to the edge of the roof and sat with her legs swinging over the edge. Jun Do joined her, but the sight of the courtyard ten stories below made him close his eyes a moment.

“I won’t be able to use mourning as an excuse much longer,” she said. “At work, they’ll hold a criticism session about me and reinstate my quota.”

Below, a steady procession of workers in their jumpsuits crossed the courtyard, traversing the fish-cart paths and passing the Canning Master’s house for the gates of the fish-processing factory.

“They never look up,” she said. “I sit out here all the time and watch them. Not one has ever looked up and caught me.”

Jun Do found the courage to gaze down upon them, and it was nothing like looking into the depths of the ocean. A hundred feet of air or sea alike would kill you, but the water would shuttle you, slowly, to a new realm.

Toward the sea, the sun was now hard to look at, so many flashes off the water. If it reminded her of Jun Do’s dream about her husband, she didn’t show it. The Junma could now be discerned from the other helms in the harbor, its peculiar bow-to-stern pitch from even the slightest wake of a passing vessel. Its nets were back aboard and it would be upon the water again soon. By shielding his eyes and squinting, Jun Do could make out a figure at the rail, looking down into the water. Only the Captain would stare into the water like that.

Below in the courtyard, a black Mercedes pulled up. It drove very slowly over the small, rutted fish-cart path and came to a stop in the grass of the courtyard. Two men in blue suits got out.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “It’s happening.”

The men below shielded their eyes and gave the building a once-over. At the sound of their car doors slamming shut, the dogs stood and shook the wet from their fur. She turned to Jun Do. “It’s really happening.” Then she made for the metal door of the stair shaft.

The first thing she did was pull on her yellow dress, and this time there was no asking Jun Do to close his eyes. She moved frantically through the one-room apartment, throwing things in her suitcase.

“I can’t believe they’re here already,” she said. She looked around the room, the expression on her face suggesting that everything she needed was eluding her. “I’m not ready. I didn’t get a chance to cut my hair. I’m not even close to being ready.”

“I care about what happens to you,” Jun Do told her. “And I can’t let them do this to you.”

She was pulling items from a chest of drawers. “That’s sweet,” she said. “You’re sweet, too, but this is my destiny, I have to go.”

“We’ve got to get you out of here,” Jun Do told her. “Maybe we can get you to your father. He’ll know what to do.”

“Are you insane?” she asked. “He’s how I got stuck here.”

For some reason, she handed him a stack of clothes.

“There’s something I should have told you,” he said.

“About what?”

“The old interrogator. He described the guys they picked out for you.”

“What guys?”

“Your replacement husbands.”

She stopped packing. “There’s more than one?”

“One’s a warden in Sinpo. The other guy’s old, a Party official down in Chongwang. The interrogator didn’t know which one was going to get you.”

She cocked her head in confusion. “There’s got to be some kind of mistake.”

“Let’s just get you out of here,” he said. “It’ll buy you some time till they come back.”

“No,” she said, her eyes fixing on him. “You can do something about this, you’re a hero, you have powers. They can’t say no to you.”

“I don’t think so,” Jun Do said. “I don’t think it works like that, not really.”

“Tell them to go away, tell them you’re marrying me.” There was a knock at the door.

She grabbed his arm. “Tell them you’re marrying me,” she said.

He studied her face, vulnerable—he’d never seen her like this.

“You don’t want to marry me,” he told her.

“You’re a hero,” she said. “And I’m a hero’s wife. You just need to come to me.” She took the hem of her skirt and held it out like an apron. “You’re the baby in the tree, and you just need to trust me.”

He went to the door, but paused before opening it.

“You talked about my husband’s purpose,” she said. “What about yours? What if your purpose is me?”

“I don’t know if I have a purpose,” he told her. “But you know yours—it’s Pyongyang, not a radio man in Kinjye. Don’t underestimate yourself—you’ll survive.”

“Survive like you?” she asked.

He didn’t say anything.

“You know what you are?” she said. “You’re a survivor who has nothing to live for.”

“What would you rather, that I die for something I cared about?”

“That’s what my husband did,” she said.

The door was forced open. It was the two men from below. They didn’t look happy about all those stairs. “Pak Jun Do?” one asked, and when Jun Do nodded, the man said, “You’ll need to come with us.”