Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

She eyed him warily. “You said the husband of your almost wife. You said he disappeared, that he went off into the light. Did you kill him?”

“No,” he told her. “That man defected. He escaped on a life raft. When we went to look for him, the morning sun off the ocean was so bright, it was like the light had swallowed him. He had the image of his wife tattooed on his chest, so he would always have her, even if she didn’t have him. But don’t worry, I won’t let you become a hazy memory.”

She didn’t like the answer or the way he told it, he could tell. But his story was part of her story now. It couldn’t be helped. He reached to touch her cheek.

“Stay away from me,” she said.

“Your own husband, if you want to know, it was the darkness for him,” he said. “Your husband went off into the dark.”

From somewhere below came the sound of a truck engine. Vehicles rarely came up the mountain, so Ga peered down into the woods, hoping to catch sight of it through a break in the trees.

“You don’t have to worry,” Ga said to her. “The truth is that the Dear Leader has an assignment for me, and when that’s over, I expect you won’t see me again.”

He looked at her, to see if she’d registered what he’d said.

“I’ve worked with the Dear Leader for many years,” she told him. “Twelve motion pictures. I wouldn’t be so sure about what he does or doesn’t have in mind.”

The sound grew until the engine was unmistakable, a heavy diesel with a low grind in the gearing. From the house next door, Comrade Buc stepped out onto his balcony and stared down into the woods, but he didn’t need to spot the truck for a grim look to cross his face. He and Ga caught each other’s eyes in a long, wary glance.

Comrade Buc called to them, “Come join us, there’s little time.”

Then he went inside.

“What is it?” Sun Moon asked.

Ga said, “It’s a crow.”

“What’s a crow?”

At the railing, they waited for the truck to pass into a visible stretch of road. “There,” he said when the black canvas of its canopy flashed through the trees. “That’s a crow.” For a moment the two of them watched the truck slowly climb the switchbacks toward their house.

“I don’t get it,” she said.

“There’s nothing to get,” he said. “That’s the truck that takes you away.”

In 33, he’d often fantasized about what he’d have grabbed from the aircraft hangar if he’d had even a minute’s notice that he was headed for a prison mine. A needle, a nail, a razor, what he wouldn’t have given for those things in prison. A simple piece of wire, and he’d have had a bird snare. A rubber band could have triggered a rat trap. How many times he longed for a spoon to eat with. But now he had other concerns.

“You take the kids into the tunnel,” Ga said. “I’ll go and meet the truck.”

Sun Moon turned to Ga with a look of horror on her face.

“What’s happening?” she asked. “Where does that truck take you?”

“Where do you think it takes you?” he asked. “There’s no time. Just take the kids down. It’s me they’re after.”

“I’m not going down there alone,” she said. “I’ve never even been down there. You can’t abandon us in some hole.”

Comrade Buc came onto his balcony again. He was buttoning his collar. “Come over,” he said and threw a black tie around his neck. “We are ready over here. Time is short, and you must join us.”

Instead, Ga went to the kitchen and stood before the washtub on the floor. The washtub was fixed to a trapdoor that lifted to reveal the ladder down to the tunnel. Ga took a deep breath and descended. He tried not to think of the minehead of Prison 33, of entering the mine in darkness every morning and emerging from the mine in darkness each night.

Sun Moon brought the boy and the girl. Ga helped them down and pulled a string that turned on the lightbulb. When it was Sun Moon’s turn at the ladder, he told her, “Get the guns.”

“No,” she said. “No guns.”

Ga helped her down, and then closed the trapdoor. Her husband had rigged a wire that pulled the pump handle, and in this way, Ga was able to fill the tub with a few liters of water to disguise the entrance.

The four of them stood by the ladder a moment, their eyes unable to adjust as the bulb swung from its wire. Then Sun Moon said, “Come, children,” and took their hands. They began walking into the darkness, only to realize that, after just fifteen meters, barely enough to get beyond the house and the road out front, the tunnel came to an end.

“Where’s the rest of it?” Sun Moon asked. “Where’s the way out?”

He walked a little into the darkness toward her, but stopped.

“There’s no escape route?” she asked. “There’s no exit?” She came to him, her eyes wheeling in disbelief. “What have you been doing down here all these years?”

Ga didn’t know what to say.

“Years,” she said. “I thought there was a whole bunker down here. I thought there was a system. But this is just a hole. What have you been spending your time on?” Lining the tunnel were some bags of rice and a couple of barrels of grain, their U.N. seals still unbroken. “There’s not even a shovel down here,” she said. Midway into the tunnel was the sole furnishing, a padded chair and a bookcase filled with rice wine and DVDs. She grabbed one and turned to him. “Movies?” she asked. Ga could tell she would scream next.

But then they all looked up—there was a vibration, the muted sound of a motor, and suddenly dirt loosened from the roof of the tunnel and fell into their faces. A sort of terror came over the children as they coughed and clutched their dirt-filled eyes. Ga walked them back toward the ladder and the light. He wiped their faces with the sleeve of his dobok . In the house above, they heard a door open, followed by footsteps crossing the wood floors, and suddenly the trapdoor was lifting. Sun Moon’s eyes went wide with shock, and she took hold of him. When Ga looked up, there was a bright square of light. In it appeared the face of Comrade Buc.

“Please, neighbors,” Comrade Buc said. “This is the first place they’ll look.”

He lowered a hand to Ga.

“Don’t worry,” Comrade Buc said. “We’ll take you with us.”

Commander Ga took the hand. “Let’s go,” he said to Sun Moon, and when she didn’t move, he yelled, “Now.” The little family snapped to and scrambled out of the tunnel. Together, they cut through the side yard and into Buc’s kitchen.

Inside, Buc’s daughters sat around a table covered in white embroidery. Buc’s wife was pulling a white dress over the last daughter’s head while Comrade Buc brought extra chairs for the guests. Ga could tell that Sun Moon was at the edge of unraveling, but the calmness of Buc’s family wouldn’t allow her to do so.

Ga and Sun Moon sat across from the Buc family, with the boy and the girl between them, the four of them dusted with dirt. In the center of the table was a can of peaches and the key to open it. They all ignored the crow idling out front. Comrade Buc passed a stack of glass dessert bowls around, and then he passed the spoons. Very carefully, he opened the peaches, so quietly you could hear the key punch and cut, punch and cut, the tin complaining as the key went around the rim in its jagged circle. Very carefully, Buc peeled back the tin lid with a spoon, so as not to come in contact with the syrup. The nine of them sat in silence looking at the peaches. Then a soldier entered the house. Under the table, the boy took Ga’s hand, and Ga gave the small hand a reassuring squeeze. When the soldier came to the table, no one moved. He had no chrome Kalashnikov, no weapon at all that Ga could tell.