Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

They laughed until they saw Jun Do’s face. “You do understand,” Dr. Song said, “that in this cooler is only cow flank. The tiger part is only a story. That’s what we’re really serving them, a story.”

“But what if they eat it?” Jun Do asked. “If they believe it is tiger, yet out of a wish not to offend, they eat it and feel morally degraded, won’t they take it out on you in the talks?”

Comrade Buc turned in anticipation of Dr. Song’s response.

“If the Americans use their senses and keep their heads level,” Dr. Song said, “then no tiger story will fool them. They will taste that this is cow. But if the Americans are just toying with us, if they don’t plan on seeking the facts and negotiating seriously, then they will taste tiger.”

“You think if they believe the tiger story,” Jun Do said, “then they’ll believe my story.”

Dr. Song shrugged. “Yours will certainly be the tougher meat to chew,” he said.

One of the young men on Comrade Buc’s procurement team came forward with three identical watches. Comrade Buc took them. “One for the Minister,” he said, and handed the others to Dr. Song and Jun Do. “They’re set to Texas time. Everybody gets the same one. It sends a message to the Americans about Korean equality and solidarity.”

“What about you?” Jun Do asked. “Where’s your watch?”

Comrade Buc said, “Oh, I’ve got no business in Texas.”

“Sadly, Comrade Buc won’t be joining us,” Dr. Song said. “He has another mission.”

Comrade Buc stood. “Yes, I should go prepare my team.”

The stewardess passed by with hot towels and handed one to Dr. Song.

“What do I have to do?” Comrade Buc said after she’d left.

“She cannot help it,” Dr. Song said. “Women naturally respond to the allure of an older gentleman. It is a fact that only an older man can truly please a woman.”

Comrade Buc laughed. “I thought you always said only a small-statured man can please a woman.”

Dr. Song defended himself. “I’m hardly small-statured. I have the exact dimensions of the Dear Leader, even my shoe size.”

“It’s true,” Comrade Buc said. “I procure for the Dear Leader. They are two of a kind.”

Jun Do took a window seat as they flew north over Sakhalin, Kamchatka, and the Sea of Okhotsk, where the Captain had been imprisoned, somewhere down there in the blue. They outran the sunset by flying north, into perpetual summer light. They stopped at the Russian Air Force base in Anadyr to refuel, and all the old pilots came out to marvel at the sight of an Ilyushin Il-62, which they concluded was forty-seven years old. They ran their hands along the belly of the plane and talked about all the problems that were corrected in later versions, and everyone had a hair-raising story about flying them before the remnants of the fleet were shipped to Africa in the late ’80s. The tower operator came forward, a large man, and Jun Do could see the places he’d once had frostbite. The tower operator said even the Ilyushin’s replacements—the early Antonovs and Tupolevs—were rare these days. “I heard the last Ilyushin Il-62 went down in Angola in the year 1999,” he added.

Dr. Song broke into Russian. “It is lamentable,” he said, “that the once great nation that created this fine aircraft is no longer able to do so.”

Comrade Buc added, “Please know that news of your country’s complete collapse was met with sadness in our nation.”

“Yes,” Dr. Song said. “Your nation and ours were once the world’s twin beacons of communism. Sadly, we now bear that burden alone.”

Comrade Buc opened a suitcase of new U.S. hundred-dollar bills to pay for the fuel, but the tower operator shook his head no.

“Euros,” he said.

Indignant, Dr. Song said, “I am personal friends with the mayor of Vladivostok.”

“Euros,” said the tower operator.

Comrade Buc had another suitcase, it turned out, this one filled with European money.

As they were departing, Dr. Song told the pilots to make a statement. They rolled the engines hard during takeoff, rattling the airframe in a tremendous display of ascent.

The Aleutians, the international date line, and nine thousand meters up, the crisp outlines of container vessels against a stippled, green-white sea. The Captain had told Jun Do that off the east coast of Japan the ocean was nine thousand meters deep, and now he understood what that meant. Witnessing the vastness of the Pacific—how impossibly monumental that you could row across it!—he understood how rare his radio contacts had been.

Where was the arm of the captain of the Kwan Li ? Jun Do suddenly wondered. In whose hands were his old dictionaries right now, and what person shaved this morning with the Captain’s brush? In what tunnel was his team now running, and what had become of the old woman they’d kidnapped, the one who said she would go willingly if she could take his picture? What could the look on his face have been, and what story did the Niigata bartender tell of the night she drank with kidnappers? The Second Mate’s wife suddenly came to him in her canning-line jumpsuit, her skin glistening with fish oil, her hair wild from steam, and that rustling yellow dress enveloped him, took him deep into sleep.

Somewhere over Canada, Dr. Song gathered everyone for a protocol briefing on the subject of Americans. He spoke to the Minister and Jun Do, as well as Comrade Buc’s team of six. The copilot and stewardess eavesdropped. Dr. Song prefaced everything with a preamble on the evils of capitalism and a recounting of American war crimes against subjugated peoples. Then he began by tackling the concept of Jesus Christ, examining the special case of the American Negro, and listing the reasons Mexicans defected to the United States. Next, he explained why affluent Americans drove their own cars and spoke to their servants as equals.

One young man asked how to behave should he encounter a homosexual.

“Point out that this is a new experience for you,” Dr. Song said, “as there are no such individuals where you are from. Then treat him as you would any visiting Juche scholar from foreign lands like Burma or Ukraine or Cuba.”

Dr. Song then got practical. He said it was okay to wear shoes indoors. Women were free to smoke in America and should not be confronted. Disciplining other people’s children in America was not okay. He drew for them on a piece of paper the shape of a football. With great discomfort, Dr. Song touched on American standards of personal hygiene, and then he delivered a mini-lecture on the subject of smiling. He concluded with dogs, noting how Americans were very sentimental, with a particular softness toward canines. You must never hurt a dog in America, he said. They are considered part of the family and are given names, just like people. Dogs also have their own beds and toys and doctors and houses, which should not be referred to as warrens.

When they finally began their descent, Comrade Buc sought out Jun Do.

“About Dr. Song,” he said. “He’s had a long and famous career, but in Pyongyang, you’re only as safe as your last success.”

“Safe?” Jun Do asked. “Safe from what?”

Comrade Buc touched the watch that Jun Do now wore. “You just help him succeed.”

“What about you, why aren’t you coming with us?”

“Me?” Comrade Buc asked. “I’ve got twenty-four hours to get to Los Angeles, buy three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of DVDs, and then get back. Is it true you’ve never seen a movie?”

“I’m not a rube or anything. I just never had the opportunity.”

“Now’s your chance,” Comrade Buc said. “Dr. Song has requested a movie about sopranos.”