Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

“I must have my answer first,” he said. “The other interrogators, the old ones, they are always lying to me. They say, Tell us your means of secret communication. Your children would like to see you , they’re right upstairs. Talk and you may visit with your wife. She is waiting for you. Tell us your role in the plot and you can go home with your family. ”

“Our team does not use deception,” we told him. “We’ll answer your question, and if you like, you can verify it for yourself.” We’d brought Comrade Buc’s file. Jujack held it up, and Buc recognized the folder’s official blue sleeve and red tab.

Comrade Buc stared at us a moment, then said, “When I fell, it was face first, and Commander Ga landed on my back. He just sat there, lecturing me. Blood filled my eye. Using his leverage, Commander Ga wrestled my right hand out, then twisted it back.”

Q-Kee, wide-eyed with the story, said, “That move’s called a reverse Kimura.”

“You can’t believe how it hurt—my shoulder, it was never the same. Please , I called out. I was just working late , please , Commander Ga , let me go . He released the hold, but continued to sit on my back. How can you not fight off a man attack? he asked. For the love of everything , there’s nothing worse, there’s nothing more base that can happen to a man—in fact, he’s not even a man after it. How could you not die trying to stop it, no matter what … unless you wanted it, unless you secretly wanted a man attack and that’s why you failed to repel it. Well, you’re lucky it was only me and not some Japanese. You’re lucky I was strong enough to protect you, you should be thanking your stars I was here to stop it. ”

“And that’s it?” we asked. “That’s where it stopped?”

Comrade Buc nodded.

“Did Commander Ga show any remorse?”

“The last thing I remember was the flash of that camera again. I was facedown, there was blood everywhere.” For a moment Comrade Buc was silent—the whole room was quiet, nothing but the sound of urine trickling downhill. Then Buc asked, “Is my family alive?”

This is where the Pubyok are better at handling some things.

“I have prepared myself,” Comrade Buc said.

“The answer is no,” we said. We moved Buc out of the water and re-chained him uphill. Then we began gathering our gear and heading for the ladders. His eyes were looking inward, a look we’re trained to recognize as a signifier of sincerity, since it’s nearly impossible to fake. True self-searching cannot be imitated.

Then Buc looked up. “I will look at the file,” he said.

We held it out to him. “Be careful,” we warned. “There is a photo.”

He paused, at the cusp of taking the folder.

We said, “The investigator said it was probably carbon monoxide poisoning. They were found in the dining room, near the heater, where they were all overtaken, before succumbing together.”

“My daughters,” Comrade Buc said. “Were they wearing white dresses?”

“One question,” we said. “That was the deal. Unless you want to help us understand why Commander Ga pulled this stunt with the actress?”

Comrade Buc said, “Commander Ga didn’t have anything to do with the missing actress—he went into Prison 33 and didn’t come out. He died down there in the mine.” Buc then cocked his head at us. “Wait, which Commander Ga are you talking about? There are two of them, you know. The Commander Ga who gave me the scar is dead.”

“You were talking about the real Commander Ga?” we asked. “Why would the false Commander Ga apologize for what the real Commander Ga did to you?”

“He apologized?”

“The imposter told us he was sorry for your scar, for what he did to you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Buc said. “Commander Ga has nothing to be sorry for. He gave me the thing I wanted most, the one thing I couldn’t procure for myself.”

“And what was that?” we asked.

“Why, he killed the real Commander Ga, of course.”

We all exchanged a glance. “So in addition to killing the actress and her children, you’re saying he killed a DPRK commander as well?”

“He didn’t kill Sun Moon and her children. Ga turned them into little birds and taught them a sad song. Then they flew away toward sunset, to a place where you’ll never find them.”

We suddenly wondered if it wasn’t true, if the actress and her children weren’t in hiding someplace. Ga was alive, wasn’t he? But who had her, where was she being held? It was easy to make somebody disappear in North Korea. But making them reappear—who has that kind of magic?

“If you helped us, we would find a way to help you,” we told Buc.

“Help you? My family is gone, my friends are gone, I’m gone. I won’t ever help you.”

“Okay,” we said and began gathering our gear. It was late and we were wiped.

I’d noticed that Comrade Buc was wearing a wedding ring, one made of gold. I told Jujack to take it.

Jujack looked back with trepidation, then took Buc’s hand and tried to shimmy it off.

“It’s too tight,” Jujack said.

“Hey,” Comrade Buc said. “Hey, that’s all I have left of them, of my wife and daughters.”

“Come on,” I told Jujack. “The subject doesn’t need it anymore.”

Q-Kee hefted the bolt cutters. “I’ll get that ring off,” she said.

“I hate you,” Comrade Buc said. He twisted hard, cutting skin, and then the ring was in my pocket. We turned to go.

“I won’t ever tell you anything,” Comrade Buc yelled at us. “You have no power over me now, nothing. Do you hear me? I’m free now. You have no power over me. Are you listening to me?”

One by one, we began climbing the rungs that led out of the sump. They were slippery and required caution.

“Eleven years,” Comrade Buc called out, his voice echoing off the wet cement. “Eleven years I procured for those prisons. The uniforms come in children’s sizes, you know. I’ve ordered thousands of them. They even make a half-sized pickax. Do you have children? For eleven years, the prison doctors order no bandages and the cooks ask for no ingredients. We ship them only millet and salt, tons and tons of millet and salt. No prison has ever requested a pair of shoes or even a single bar of soap. But they must have transfusion bags right away. They must have bullets and barbed wire tomorrow! I prepared my family. They knew what to do. Are you prepared? Do you know what you would do?”

Climbing hand over hand up the galvanized steps, those of us with children tried to keep focus, but the interns, always the interns think they are invincible, right? Q-Kee led the way with her headlamp. When she stopped and looked down at the rest of us, we all stopped, too. We looked up at her, a halo of light above us.

She asked, “Ryoktosan defected?”

We were all silent. In the quiet, you could hear Buc preaching about children being stoned and hanged, going on and on.

Q-Kee let out a groan of pain and disappointment. “Ryoktosan, too,” she said, shaking her head. “Is there anyone left who’s not a coward?”

Then the pumps kicked in, and thankfully, we couldn’t hear anything.

WHEN Commander Ga returned to Sun Moon’s house, he was wearing the Western pistol on his hip. Before he could knock on the door, Brando alerted the house to his presence. Sun Moon answered in a simple choson-ot —its jeogori was white and the chima was patterned with pale blossoms. It was the peasant-girl dress she’d worn in the movie A True Daughter of the Country .

Today, she did not banish him to the tunnel. He’d been to work and now he was home, and he was greeted as a normal husband returning from the office. The son and daughter were standing at attention in their school uniforms, though they hadn’t been going to school. She hadn’t let them out of her sight since he’d arrived. He called the girl girl and the boy boy because Sun Moon refused to tell him their names.