Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

Now imagine her house, perched on the scenic cliffs of Mount Taesong. From below rose the purifying scents of kimjongilia and kimilsungia being grown in the botanical garden’s hothouses. And beyond that, the Central Zoo, the most profitable zoo in the world, with over four hundred animals available, live and preserved. Picture Sun Moon’s children, their angelic natures filling the house with honorific sanjo music, courtesy of the boy’s taegum and the girl’s gayageum . Even our national actress must help the cause of the people, so she was canning kelp to prepare her family should another Arduous March occur. Kelp washes ashore in quantities to feed millions and, once dried, can also be used for bedding, insulation, masculine virility, and firing of local megawatt stations. See Sun Moon’s glimmering choson-ot as she purged the jars, observe how the steam made glisteny the contours of her womanness!

There was a knock at the door. No one ever knocked at this door, so out of the way is their house. This is the safest nation in the world, where crime is unheard of, so she didn’t fear for herself. Yet she hesitated. Her husband was the hero Commander Ga, often away on dangerous missions, as he was right now. What if something had befallen him, and here was a messenger of the state to deliver the bad news? She knew that he truly belonged to his nation, to his people, and that she shouldn’t think of him as hers, and yet she did—such was her love. How could she help it?

When the door opened, there stood Commander Ga—his uniform was crisp and on his chest were pinned both the Ruby Star and the Eternal Flame of Juche. He stepped inside and at the sight of Sun Moon’s great beauty, he brazenly undressed her with his eyes. Look at how he ogled her curves beneath her housecoat, how he studied the ways in which each small motion of her body heaved her chest. Look at how this coward treated the great Korean modesty of Sun Moon like rubbish!

The good citizen is thinking, How can you call the hero Commander Ga a coward? Did Commander Ga not famously complete six assassination missions via the tunnels under the DMZ? Does he not hold the Golden Belt in taekwondo, the most deadly martial art in the world? Did Ga not win for his bride the cinema actress Sun Moon, star of the movies Immortally Devoted and Oppressors Tumble ?

The answer, citizens, is that this was not the genuine Commander Ga! Look at the photo of the real Commander Ga on the wall behind this imposter. The man in the picture had broad shoulders, a crenellated brow, and teeth worn down from aggressive grinding. Now look at the spindly man wearing the Commander’s uniform—sunken chest, girl’s ears, barely the notion of a noodle in his trousers. Certainly it is an insult to do this imposter the honor of being called Commander Ga, but for the beginning of this story, it will suffice.

He commanded, “I am Commander Ga, and you will treat me as such.”

Even though all her instincts told her this was not true, she was wise to set aside her own feelings and trust the guidance of a government official, for he bore the rank of minister. When in doubt, always look to your leaders for proper behavior.

For two full weeks, though, she was wary of him. He had to sleep in the tunnel with the dog, and he was only allowed out to taste of the broth that she prepared once daily for him. His body was lean, but he did not complain of the thin soup. Every day, she drew a hot bath for him, and he was allowed to enter the house from the tunnel to cleanse his body. Then, like a dutiful wife, Sun Moon bathed in his leftover wash water. Finally, it was back to the tunnel with the canine, an animal not meant to be domesticated. For an entire year, this beast had chewed the furniture and urinated at will. No amount of beatings from Sun Moon’s husband could get the dog to obey. Now, Commander Ga spent his time in the tunnel training the animal to “sit” and “lie down” as well as other indolent phrases from capitalism. Worst of the commands was “hunt,” which encouraged the beast to poach game from the public lands of the people.

For two weeks, this is the routine they kept, as if by maintaining it, the real husband would simply enter one day and all would be as if he never disappeared. As if the current man in her house were nothing but a smoker’s intermission in one of her epic film performances. Certainly this was difficult for the actress—look at her posture, observe how she stood flat-footed, arms crossed. But did she think the pain in her movies was pretend, did she think the portrayal of national suffering was fiction? Did she think she could be the face of a Korea that has been dealt a thousand years of blows without losing a husband or two?

For Commander Ga, or whoever he really was, he thought he’d finished with a life of tunnels. This tunnel was a small one—large enough to stand inside, sure, but barely fifteen meters in length, just enough to travel under the front yard and perhaps under the road. Inside were barrels of supplies for the next Arduous March. There was a single lightbulb and a single chair. There was a large collection of DVDs, though no sign of a screen on which to view them. Yet he was happy listening to the boy above blow the wobbly notes of his taegum . It was bliss to hear the pluckings of a mother teaching her daughter the melancholy way of the gayageum —he could picture their choson-ots spread wide across the floor as they leaned into the sorrowful notes. Late at night, the actress paced behind the closed doors of the bedroom, and in his tunnel, Commander Ga could almost watch her feet fall, so closely did he follow her movements. In his mind, he mapped the bedroom based on how many steps she took between the window and the door, and by the way she moved around certain objects, he was sure of the location of her bed and wardrobe and vanity. It was almost as if he were in the chamber with her.

On the morning of the fourteenth day, he had accepted that this was how his life might continue for a long time, and he was at peace with that, but little did he know a dove was headed his way with a most glorious message in its beak. Loosed from the capital, the dove’s wings fluttered above the Taedong River, turning in its bends sweet and green, while along the banks patriots and virgins strolled hand in hand. The dove swooped through girls from a Juche Youth Troop, skipping along in their darling uniforms, axes over their shoulders, heading to chop wood in Mansu Park. With delight, the white bird barrel-rolled through the May Day Stadium, largest in the world, then clapped its wings in pride over the great red flame of the Tower of Juche! Then up, up Mount Taesong, bending a wing in greeting toward the flamingos and peacocks in the Central Zoo, before veering wide from the electric fences surrounding the botanical gardens, ready to repel the next American sneak attack. A single, patriotic tear was shed above the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery, and then the dove was on Sun Moon’s windowsill, dropping the note in her hand.

Commander Ga looked up when the trapdoor to the tunnel was opened and Sun Moon leaned down, her robe opening slightly, the glory of a whole nation seemingly enbosomed in her generous womanliness. She read the note: “It is time, Commander Ga, to return to work.”

The driver was waiting to take Commander Ga into the most beautiful city in the world—observe its wide streets and tall buildings, try to find a single item of trash or stray mark of graffiti! Graffiti, citizens, is the name for the way capitalists deface their public buildings. Here are no annoying advertisements, cellular phones, or planes in the sky. And try to take your eyes off our traffic girls!

Soon Commander Ga was on the third floor of Building 13, the most modern office complex in the world. Whoosh , whoosh went the vacuum tubes all around him. Flicker, flicker went the green computer screens. He found his desk on the third floor, then turned his nameplate inward, as if to remind himself that he was Commander Ga and his job was Minister of Prison Mines, that it was he who was in charge of the finest prison system in the world. Ah, there is no prison like a North Korean prison—so productive, so conducive to personal reflection. Prisons in the South are filled with jukeboxes and lipstick, places where men sniff glue and ripen each other’s fruit!