Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

Sun Moon ran her hands across the upholstery. She flipped down the passenger visor, looked at herself in the mirror. “No,” she said. “This is the car I was in. It was a prop in one of my movies, the one where the Americans are repelled and MacArthur is caught fleeing. This was the car the coward tried to escape in. I had a scene right here, in this seat. I had to kiss a traitor to get information. That was years ago, that movie.”

Talk of movies had fouled her mood, he could tell.

They drove alongside the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery. The Songun guard with their golden rifles had gone home for the day and in the long shadows cast by the bronze headstones moved occasional men and women. In the growing dark, these ghostly figures, keeping low and moving quickly, were gathering all the flowers from the graves.

“Always they are stealing flowers,” Sun Moon remarked as they passed by. “It sickens me. My great-uncle is in there, you know. Do you know what that says to our ancestors, how it must insult them?”

Ga asked her, “Why do you think they steal the flowers?”

“Yes, that’s the question, isn’t it? Who would do that? What’s happening to our country?”

He stole a brief glance, to confirm her disbelief. Had she never been hungry enough to eat a flower? Did she not know that you could eat daisies, daylilies, pansies, and marigolds? That hungry enough, a person could consume the bright faces of violas, even the stems of dandelions and the bitter hips of roses?

They crossed the Chongnyu Bridge, drove through the south of the city, and crossed again on the Yanggakdo. It was dinnertime, and there was wood smoke in the air. In the twilight, the Taedong River reminded him of mineshaft water, ore-dark and cold. She instructed him to take Sosong Street toward the Putong, but amid the thick apartment buildings that lined Chollima, something slammed onto the hood of their car. A gun had gone off, that’s what he thought at first, or some kind of collision. Commander Ga stopped in the road, and he and Sun Moon got out, leaving their doors open.

The road was wide and unlit, there were no other cars. It was the time of evening when blues and grays grew together. People had been grilling turnips at the curb—a band of bitter smoke stood in the air, waist high. They congregated around the car to see what had happened. There on the hood was a baby goat, its horns just stubs and its eyes loose and wet. Some people looked up to the rooftops where other animals continued to graze as the first stars appeared above. There was no gore, but you could see the goat’s little eyes go milky and fill with blood. Sun Moon covered her face, and Ga put his hand on her shoulder.

Suddenly, a young woman broke from the crowd. She snatched the baby goat and bolted down the street. They watched her run, the goat’s bouncing head, its blood-spittle streaking down her back. The crowd, he realized, was now staring at him. He was a yangban in their eyes, with his fancy uniform and beautiful wife.

They arrived late to the Grand People’s Opera House, empty save for a few dozen couples in small groups, their conversations reduced to murmurs by the huge ceilings and cascades of black silk curtains and mulberry-colored carpets. In one of the upper balconies stood a tenor. With his hands clasped, he sang “Arirang” while below, despite the drinks and delicacies, the guests attempted to find some pleasure in the hollow time before they were rewarded with the Dear Leader’s spirited company.

“Arirang , Arirang,” the tenor sang, “ah-rah-ree-yoh.”

“That,” Sun Moon said, “is Dak-Ho. He runs the Central Cinema Studio. But his voice, no other man’s is his match.”

Commander Ga and Sun Moon moved watchfully toward the couples. How beautiful she was crossing the room, taking quick, small steps, her shape so perfectly implied in the drape of Korean silk.

The men were the first to acknowledge her. In their dress uniforms and Assembly suits, they showed their gold smiles as if Sun Moon hadn’t been absent from the yangban set for so long. They seemed indifferent to the cancellation of her movie premiere or to her arrival with a strange man in her husband’s uniform, as if all these weren’t signs they’d lost one of their own. The women, however, broadcast open scorn—perhaps they believed if they closed ranks against her, Sun Moon might not transmit to them the malady they feared most.

Sun Moon stopped suddenly and turned to Ga, as if overcome by an impulse to kiss him. Showing her back to those women, she looked into Ga’s eyes as if looking for her own reflection. “I am a talented actress and you are my husband,” she said. “I am a talented actress and you are my husband.”

Ga looked into her uncertain, unseeing eyes.

“You are a talented actress,” he said. “And I am your husband.”

Then she turned, smiled, and they strode forward.

One man broke from the group to intercept them.

At his approach, Sun Moon stiffened. “Commander Park,” she said. “How have you been?”

“Fine, thank you,” he said to Sun Moon, and with a jackknife bow, he kissed her hand. Rising, he said, “And Commander Ga, how long has it been?”

Park’s face was marked from a naval firefight with an ROK patrol boat.

“Too long, Commander Park, much too long.”

“True,” Park said. “But tell me, have you noticed something different about me?”

Ga looked at Park’s uniform, at his fat rings and tie, but really he couldn’t help being drawn to the striated scars on one side of his face.

“Certainly,” Ga said. “The change is for the better.”

“Really,” Commander Park said. “I thought you would be angry—you are the most competitive person.”

Ga glanced over at Sun Moon.

He thought she might be relishing this moment, but her face was fixed, wary.

Commander Park fingered a medal on his chest. “You will win your own Songun Cross one day,” he said. “True, it’s only given once a year, but don’t let that deter you.”

Ga said, “Perhaps I will be the first to win two in a row, then.”

Commander Park laughed. “That’s a good one, Ga. That is so like you.” He placed a hand on Ga’s shoulder, as if to whisper something humorous in his ear. Instead, he grabbed Ga’s collar, pulling him down to deliver a vicious uppercut to Ga’s midsection, a liver punch that knuckled under the ribs. Then Park strode away.

Sun Moon took hold of Ga and tried to usher him to a seat, but no, he wished to stand.

“Always men must come to that,” she said.

Between shallow breaths, Commander Ga asked, “Who was that?”

Sun Moon said, “That was your best friend.”

People returned to their conversations, standing in clusters near the food.

Ga held his side, then nodded. “I think I will sit,” he said, and they took chairs at an empty table. Sun Moon observed every move the partygoers made, attempting, it seemed, to read their conversations by gestures only.

A woman came their way alone. She wore a cautious look on her face, but she brought Ga a glass of water. She wasn’t much older than Sun Moon, yet she had tremors, so the water kept coming over the rim. In her other hand was a cocktail plate stacked with shrimp.

Ga took the glass and drank, though it hurt when the water went down.

The woman pulled from her pocket a piece of waxed paper and began placing the shrimp in it. “My husband,” she said. “He is my age. He has such a good heart, that man. By heart I mean he would have intervened in that spectacle we just witnessed. No, he couldn’t stand to see someone get hurt without getting involved.”

Ga watched her place the shrimp one at a time on the paper. He stared at their opaque white shells and black bead eyes—these were the blind, deep-water shrimp they’d risked their lives for aboard the Junma .