Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

Outside, the air was dry and cool and smelled of cactus ribs and aluminum stock tanks. The stars wavered as Texas gave off the last of its heat. Jun Do followed the sounds of Mexican singers and a whirring blender to the corral, where the men wore white shirts and the women were wrapped in colorful shawls. There was a tripod of fire, illuminating the sheen of people’s faces. It was a thrilling idea—setting wood ablaze just so people could mingle and enjoy one another’s company in the dark. By the flickering light, the Senator played his fiddle and sang a song called “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

Wanda walked by holding so many limes she had to press them against her chest. When Jun Do stopped, the dog stopped, its coat in the firelight orange and black. “Okay, dog,” Jun Do said, and stiffly patted its head like an American would.

Wanda juiced limes with a wooden baton as Pilar upturned bottles of liquor into the blender. Wanda jazzed its button in time with the music, then Pilar filled a line of yellow plastic cups with great flair. Wanda brought him a drink when she saw him.

He stared at the salt on the rim. “What’s this?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” she said. “Be a sport. You know what Saddam had in the deepest room of his bunker? I’m talking below the hardened war rooms and command centers. He had an Xbox video game, with only one controller.”

He gave her a look of incomprehension.

“Everybody needs to have fun,” she said.

Jun Do drank from the cup—tart and dry, it tasted like thirst itself.

“I looked into your friend,” Wanda said. “The Japanese and South Koreans don’t have anybody who fits the bill. If he crossed the Yalu into China, then who knows. And maybe he’s not going by his real name. Give it time, he might turn up. Sometimes they make their way to Thailand.”

Jun Do unfolded his piece of paper and handed it to Wanda. “Can you pass along this message for me?”

“ ‘Alive and Well in North Korea,’ ” she read. “What is this?”

“It’s a list of Japanese kidnap victims.”

“Those kidnappings all made the news,” Wanda said. “Anyone could have made this list. It doesn’t prove anything.”

“Prove?” Jun Do asked. “I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m trying to tell you what no one else can—that none of these people were lost, that they all survived their kidnappings and that they are alive and well. Not knowing, that’s the worst. That list isn’t for you—it’s a message from me to those families, for their peace of mind. It’s all I have to give them.”

“They’re all alive and well,” she said. “Except for the one with the star?”

Jun Do made himself speak her name. “Mayumi,” he said.

She sipped her drink and looked at him sideways. “Do you speak Japanese?”

“Enough,” he said. “Watashi no neko ga maigo ni narimashita?”

“What’s that mean?”

“Can you help me find my kitty-cat?”

Wanda gave him a look, then slid the paper into her back pocket.

It wasn’t until dinner that Jun Do got a good look at Dr. Song. Jun Do tried to guess how the talks had gone by the way Dr. Song poured margaritas for the ladies and nodded in approval at the spiciness of the salsa. The table was round and seated eight, with Pilar swooping in to add and remove dishes. She named everything on the lazy Susan at the center of the table, including flautas, mole, rellenos, and fix-it-yourself tacos: there was a tortilla warmer and dishes of cilantro, onion, diced tomatoes, shredded cabbage, Mexican cream, black beans, and tiger.

When Dr. Song tasted his tiger, a look of pure glee crossed his face. “Tell me this isn’t the best tiger you’ve had,” he said. “Tell me American tiger can measure up. Is the Korean tiger not fresher, more vital?”

Pilar brought another platter of meat. “Bueno,” she said. “Too bad there is no Mexican tiger.”

“You’ve outdone yourself, Pilar,” the Senator’s wife said. “Your best Tex-Mex yet.”

Dr. Song eyed them both with suspicion.

The Minister held up his taco. In English, he said, “Yes.”

Tommy ate his taco and nodded in approval. “The best meat I ever had,” he said, “was with me and some buddies on leave. We raved and raved about the dinner, eating until we were stuffed. We spoke so highly they brought out the chef, who said he would make us some to go, that it was no problem because he had another dog out back.”

“Oh, Tommy,” the Senator’s wife said.

“I was with a tribal militia once,” Wanda said. “They prepared a feast of fetal pigs, boiled in goat’s milk. That’s the most tender meat ever.”

“Enough,” the Senator’s wife said. “Another topic, please.”

The Senator said, “Anything but politics.”

“There is something I must know,” Jun Do said. “When I was upon the waters, in the Sea of Japan, we followed the broadcasts of two American girls. I never knew what became of them.”

“The rowers,” Wanda said.

“What an awful story,” the Senator’s wife said. “Such a waste.”

The Senator turned to Tommy. “They found the boat, right?”

“They found the boat but no girls,” Tommy said. “Wanda, you get any backchannel on what really went down?”

Wanda was leaning over her plate to eat, a stream of taco juice running down her hand. “I hear the boat was partly burned,” she said with her mouth full. “They found the blood of one girl but nothing of the other. A murder-suicide, perhaps.”

“It was the girl who rowed in the dark,” Jun Do said. “She used a flare gun.”

The table went silent.

“She rowed with her eyes closed,” Jun Do said. “That was her problem. That’s how she got off course.”

Tommy asked, “Why would you ask what happened to those girls if you already knew?”

“I didn’t know what happened,” Jun Do said. “I only knew how.”

“Tell us what happened to you,” the Senator’s wife asked Jun Do. “You said you’ve spent some time on the water. How did you come by such a wound?”

“It is too soon,” Dr. Song cautioned them. “The wound is still fresh. This story is as difficult to hear as it is for my friend to tell.” He turned to Jun Do. “Another time, yes.”

“It’s okay,” Jun Do said, “I can tell it,” and he proceeded to recount their encounter with the Americans in great detail, how the Junma was boarded, the way the soldiers moved with their rifles and how they became blackened with soot. He explained the shoes that he had found, and how they littered the decks, and Jun Do described how the soldiers smoked and sorted through the shoes after the boat was declared clear, how they began stealing souvenirs, including the most sacred portraits of the Dear and Great Leaders, and how a knife was then drawn and the Americans were forced to retreat. He mentioned the fire extinguisher. He told them how officers on the American ship drank coffee and watched. He described the cruise missile that flexed its biceps on a sailor’s lighter.

The Senator said, “But how’d you get hurt, son?”

“They came back,” Jun Do said.

“Why would they come back?” Tommy asked. “They’d already cleared your vessel.”

“What were you doing on a fishing vessel in the first place?” the Senator asked.

“Clearly,” Dr. Song said with some force, “the Americans were ashamed that a single North Korean, armed only with a knife, made cowardly an entire armed American unit.”

Jun Do took a drink of water. “All I know,” he said, “is that it was first light, the sun to the starboard. The American ship came out of the brightness, and suddenly we were boarded. The Second Mate was on deck with the Pilot and the Captain. It was laundry day, so they were boiling seawater. There was screaming. I went up top with the Machinist and the First Mate. The man from before, Lieutenant Jervis, had the Second Mate at the rail. They were shouting at him about the knife.”