Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

“I’d have no way of playing a DVD,” Jun Do told him.

“You’d find a way,” Comrade Buc said.

“What about Sun Moon? I’d see a movie starring her.”

“They don’t sell our films in America.”

“Is it true that she’s sad?”

“Sun Moon?” Comrade Buc nodded. “Her husband Commander Ga and the Dear Leader are rivals. Commander Ga is too famous to punish, so it is his wife who gets no more movie roles. We hear her next door. She plays the gayageum all day, teaching that sad, wandering sound to her children.”

Jun Do could see her fingers pluck the strings, each note striking, flaring, and losing timbre like a match that burns to smoke.

“Last chance for an American movie,” Comrade Buc said. “They’re the only real reason to learn English.”

Jun Do tried to gauge the nature of the offer. In Comrade Buc’s eyes, Jun Do saw a look he knew well from childhood, the look of a boy who thought the next day would be better. Those boys never lasted. Still, Jun Do liked them the most.

“Okay,” he said. “Which one’s the best?”

“Casablanca,” Comrade Buc said. “They say that one is the greatest.”

“Casablanca,” Jun Do said. “I’ll take that one.”

It was morning when they landed at Dyess Air Force Base south of Abilene, Texas.

Jun Do’s nocturnal schedule served him now on the other side of the world. He was awake and alert—through the Ilyushin’s yellowed window, he could see that two older cars had pulled onto the blacktop to meet them. There were three Americans in hats out there, two men and a woman. When the Ilyushin rested its engines, they rolled up a metal stairway.

“In twenty-four hours,” Dr. Song said as a farewell to Comrade Buc.

Comrade Buc executed a quick bow, and then opened the door.

The air was dry. It smelled of hot metal and withered cornstalks. Fighter jets, a row of them, were parked at a shimmering distance—they were things Jun Do had only seen in inspirational murals.

At the bottom of the stairs, their three hosts were waiting. Standing in the center was the Senator, who was perhaps older than Dr. Song, yet tall and tan in blue pants and an embroidered shirt. Jun Do could see a molded medical device filling the Senator’s ear. If Dr. Song was sixty, the Senator must have had a decade on him.

Tommy was the Senator’s friend, a black man, much the same age, though leaner, with hair that had gone white and a face more deeply creased. And then there was Wanda. She was young, thick-bodied, and had a yellow ponytail sticking out the back of a ball cap that read “Blackwater.” She wore a red cowgirl shirt with silver snaps.

“Minister,” the Senator said.

“Senator,” the Minister said, and there were general greetings all around.

“Come,” the Senator said. “We’ve got a little side trip planned.”

The Senator directed the Minister toward an old American car. When the Minister moved to open the driver’s-side door, the Senator gently directed him to the other side.

Tommy indicated a white convertible whose chrome lettering proclaimed “Mustang.”

“I must travel with them,” Dr. Song said.

“They’re in a Thunderbird,” Wanda said. “It only seats two.”

“But they don’t speak the same language,” Dr. Song said.

Tommy said, “Half a Texas don’t speak the same language.”

The Mustang, top down, followed the Thunderbird out onto a county road. Jun Do rode in the backseat with Dr. Song. Tommy drove.

Wanda lifted her head into the wind, moving her face back and forth, enjoying it. Far ahead and far behind, Jun Do could make out the black of security vehicles. The side of the road glimmered with broken glass. Why would a country be strewn with razor-sharp glass? To Jun Do, it seemed like some tragedy had taken place every step of the way. And where were all the people? A barbed-wire fence paced them, making it feel as if they were in a normal control-permit zone. But rather than concrete poles with insulators for the electricity, the posts were made from gnarled, bleached branches that looked like broken limbs or old bones, as if something had died to build every five meters of that fence.

“This is quite a special car,” Dr. Song said.

“It’s the Senator’s,” Tommy said. “We’ve been friends since our Army days.” Tommy’s arm was hanging outside the car in the wind. He slapped the metal twice. “I had known war in Vietnam,” he said. “And I had known Jesus, but it wasn’t till I borrowed this Mustang, with rolled-and-tucked backseats, that I knew Mary McParsons and took my first breath as a man.”

Wanda laughed.

Dr. Song shifted uncomfortably on the leather.

Jun Do could see on the face of Dr. Song the great insult that had been done him to be informed he was sitting where Tommy had once had intercourse.

“Oh,” Tommy went on, “I cringe when I think of the guy I used to be. Thank God I ain’t still him. I married that woman, by the way. I did that right, rest her soul.”

Dr. Song observed a political sign bearing the image of the Senator and an American flag. “There is an election coming, no?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Tommy said. “The Senator’s got a primary in August.”

“We are lucky, Jun Do,” Dr. Song said, “to witness American democracy in action.”

Jun Do tried to think of how Comrade Buc would respond. “Most exciting,” Jun Do said.

Dr. Song asked, “Will the Senator retain his representative position?”

“It’s pretty much a sure thing,” Tommy said.

“A sure thing?” Dr. Song asked. “That doesn’t sound very democratic.”

Jun Do said, “That’s not how we were taught democracy works.”

“Tell me,” Dr. Song said to Tommy. “What will be the voter turnout?”

Tommy looked at them in the rearview mirror. “Of registered voters? For a primary, that would be about forty percent.”

“Forty percent?” Dr. Song exclaimed. “Voter turnout in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is ninety-nine percent—the most democratic nation in the world! Still, the United States needn’t feel shame. Your country can still be a beacon for countries with lower turnouts, like Burundi, Paraguay, and Chechnya.”

“Ninety-nine-percent turnout?” Tommy marveled. “With democracy like that, I’m sure you’ll soon be over a hundred.”

Wanda laughed, but then she looked back, caught Jun Do’s eye, and offered him a smile that was sly-eyed, seeming to include him in the humor.

Tommy looked at them in the rearview mirror. “You don’t actually believe that ‘most democratic nation’ business, do you? You know the truth about where you’re from, right?”

Wanda said, “Don’t ask them questions like that. The wrong answer could get them in trouble back home.”

Tommy said, “Tell me you at least know the South won the war. Please know that much.”

“But you’re wrong, my dear Thomas,” Dr. Song said. “I believe it was the Confederacy that lost the war. It was the North that prevailed.”

Wanda smiled at Tommy. “He got you on that one,” she said.

Tommy laughed. “He sure did.”

They pulled off the road at a cowboy emporium. The parking lot was empty save for the Thunderbird and a black car parked to the side. Inside, several salespersons were waiting to outfit the visitors in Western attire. Dr. Song translated to the Minister that cowboy boots were gifts from the Senator and he could have any pair he wished. The Minister was fascinated by the exotic boots and tried on pairs made from lizard, ostrich, and shark. Finally he decided on snake, and the staff began seeking out pairs in his size.

Dr. Song conferred briefly with the Minister, then announced, “The Minister must make a defecate.”