Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

A whoosh dropped a vacuum tube into the hopper on Commander Ga’s desk. He opened the tube and removed a note, scribbled on the back of a requisition form. It read, “Prepare for the Dear Leader.” He looked around the room for the author of the note, but all the phone sweepers were hard at work typing what they heard over their blue headsets, and the procurement teams had their heads buried under the black cloth of their computer hoods.

Out the window, light rain had begun to fall, and Commander Ga could make out an old woman in a shift, now nearly see-through, making her way through the upper branches of an oak tree, hunting down acorns, which all citizens know is forbidden until acorn-harvesting season is officially declared. Perhaps years of prison inspection had given the Commander a soft spot for our older citizens.

It was then that the entire vacuum system came to a halt, and in the eerie silence that followed, everyone looked up to the maze of clear tubes overhead, knowing what was to follow: the system was being prepared for a personal delivery from the Dear Leader himself. Suddenly, the sucking whistle began again, and all eyes watched as a golden tube snaked its way through the system to land in the hopper at the edge of Commander Ga’s desk.

Commander Ga removed the golden tube. The note inside read only, “Would you do us the courtesy of your presence?”

The tension in the room was palpable. Was it possible that Commander Ga was not leaping high to run to the aid of his glorious leader? No, instead, he fumbled with the items on his desk, choosing to inspect more closely a device called a Geiger counter, made to detect the presence of nuclear materials, for our country is rich in deeply buried nuclear materials. Did he make a plan to put this valuable piece of equipment to work? Did he assign it a guardian for safekeeping? No, citizens, Commander Ga took this detector and climbed out the window, where he stepped onto a wet oak bough. Climbing high, he handed it to the old woman, saying, “Sell this at the night market. Then buy yourself a proper meal.”

Of course, citizens, he lied: there’s no such thing as a night market!

What’s important is that no one looked up when Ga returned through the window. All kept working as he brushed wet leaves from his uniform. In the South, workers would be tittyweeping that someone had broken the “rules” by giving away government property. But here, discipline reigns, and people know that nothing happens without a purpose, that no task goes unnoticed, that if a man gives an old woman in an oak tree a nuclear detector, he does so because the Dear Leader wishes him to. That if there are two Commander Gas or one or none, it is as the Dear Leader desires.

Walking toward his destiny, Commander Ga caught the eye of Comrade Buc, who threw him the thumbs-up sign. Some people may find Comrade Buc humorous or even jaunty. Sure, he has an adorable scar splitting his brow that, owing to his wife’s inability to sew, no longer connected. But remember that the thumbs-up was the signal the Yanks gave before dropping their payloads upon the innocents of North Korea. Just watch the movies, and you’ll see the smiles, the thumbs-up, and then the bombs falling on Mother Korea. Watch Sneak Attack , starring Ga’s own lovely wife. Watch The Last Day of March , which dramatizes the day in 1951 in which the Americans dropped a hundred and twenty thousand tons of napalm, leaving only three buildings standing in Pyongyang. So give Buc a thumbs-down and pay no more attention to him! His name, regrettably, will be heard from time to time, but he is no longer a character in this story and you are to henceforth ignore him.

And of Commander Ga? However lacking, however feeble you have judged his character, know that this is a story of growth and redemption, one in which enlightenment is gained by the lowliest of figures. Let this story be an inspiration when dealing with the weak-minded who share your communal housing blocks and the selfish who use all the soap in your group bathing wells. Know that change is achievable and that happy endings do come, for this story promises to have the happiest ending you will ever hear.

An elevator was waiting for Commander Ga. Inside was a beautiful woman in a white-and-navy uniform with blue-tinted sunglasses. She did not speak. The elevator had no controls, and she made no movement. How it descended, and whether she operated it, Ga couldn’t tell, but soon they were dropping deep under Pyongyang. When the doors opened, he found himself in a glorious room, where gifts from other world leaders adorned the walls. There were rhino-horn bookends from Robert Mugabe, Supreme President of Zimbabwe; a black-lacquered longevity mask from Guy de Greves, Foreign Minister of Haiti; and a silver “Happy Birthday” platter signed to the Dear Leader by every member of Myanmar’s Central Junta.

Suddenly, there was a bright light. Emerging from this was the Dear Leader, so confident, so tall, striding toward Commander Ga, and Commander Ga felt all his earthly worries fall away as a sense of well-being overtook him. It was as if his very being were cupped within the Dear Leader’s own protective hands, and he felt only an urge to serve the glorious nation that had spawned such confidence in him.

Commander Ga bowed deeply and with total supplication.

The Dear Leader clasped him firmly and spoke, “Please, enough bowing, my good citizen. It has been too long, Ga, too long. Your nation needs you now. I have a delicious bit of mischief planned for our American friends. Are you willing to help?”

Why, citizens, did the Dear Leader show no distress at the appearance of this imposter? What is the Dear Leader’s plan? Will the extended sadness of the actress Sun Moon be lifted? Find out tomorrow, citizens, when we deliver the next installment of this year’s Best North Korean Story!

THE ELEVATOR plummeted deep into Bunker 13, where Commander Ga would meet the Dear Leader. Ga felt a sharp pain in his eardrums and his body felt limp, as if he were free-falling back into a prison mine. Seeing Comrade Buc—his smile, his thumbs-up—had opened a void in Commander Ga between the person he used to be and the person he’d become. Comrade Buc was the only person who existed on both sides of Commander Ga’s void, who knew both the young hero who’d gone to Texas and the new husband of Sun Moon, the most dangerous man in Pyongyang. Now Ga felt rattled. He felt newly aware that he wasn’t invincible, that it wasn’t destiny in control of him but danger.

When the elevator doors opened, deep in Bunker 13, a team of elite bodyguards gave Commander Ga an eleven-point body search, though it was nothing worse than what he’d experienced each time he’d returned from Japan. The room was white and cold. They took a cup of urine from him and a clipping of hair. He barely got his clothes back on before he heard the clacking of heels growing louder in the hall outside as guards saluted the approach of the Dear Leader. Then the door simply opened, and in stepped Kim Jong Il. He wore a gray jumpsuit and designer glasses that amplified the playfulness in his eyes.

“There you are, Ga,” he said. “We missed you.”

Commander Ga gave a long, deep bow, fulfilling his first promise to Sun Moon.

The Dear Leader smiled. “That wasn’t so hard,” he said. “That didn’t cost you anything, did it?” He placed a hand on Ga’s shoulder and looked up into his eyes. “But the bow must come in public. Isn’t that what I told you?”

Commander Ga said, “Can’t a man practice?”

“There’s the Ga I love,” the Dear Leader said. On the table was a mounted Siberian fox posed mid-pounce above a white vole, a gift of Constantine Dorosov, mayor of Vladivostok. The Dear Leader looked as though he might admire the fur of the fox, but instead he stroked the vole, its teeth bared against the threat above. “I should still be cross with you, Ga,” he said. “I can’t even count your wrongdoings. You let our most productive prison burn, along with fifteen hundred of our best inmates. I’m still trying to explain to the Chinese Premier your episode at that bathhouse in Shenyang. My driver of twenty years, he’s still in a coma. The new one drives fine, but I miss the old one—his loyalty had been tested many times.” Here, the Dear Leader returned to him. With a hand on the shoulder, the Dear Leader pressed Ga to his knees, so the Dear Leader now towered above. “And what you said to me at the opera, that cannot be unsaid. Your head would be the only way to restore the injury. And what leader wouldn’t wish you gone, to disappear forever for all the trouble you cause? Do you forget that I gave you Sun Moon? Still, I have a soft spot for your antics. Yes, I will give you one more chance. Do you accept a new mission from me?”