Adam Johnson - The Orphan Master's Son

Jun Do stood. He took a step back to get the right distance for a turnbuckle kick. He closed his eyes, he could feel the space, he could visualize the hip pivoting, the leg rising, the whip of the instep as it torqued around. Jun Do had dealt with this his whole life, the ways it was impossible for people from normal families to conceive of a man in so much hurt that he couldn’t acknowledge his own son, that there was nothing worse than a mother leaving her children, though it happened all the time, that “take” was a word people used for those who had so little to give as to be immeasurable.

When Jun Do opened his eyes, Gil suddenly realized what was about to happen.

He fumbled his drink. “Whoa,” he said. “My mistake, okay? I’m from a big family, I don’t know anything about orphans. We should go, we’ve got things to do.”

“Okay, then,” Jun Do said. “Let’s see how you treat those pretty ladies in Pyongyang.”

Behind the auditorium was the artists’ village—a series of cottages ringing a central hot spring. They could see the stream of water, still steaming hot, running from the bathhouse. Mineral white, it tumbled down bald, bleached rocks toward the sea.

They hid the cart, then Jun Do boosted Gil over the fence. When Gil came around to open the metal gate for Jun Do, Gil paused a moment and the two regarded one another through the bars before Gil lifted the latch and let Jun Do in.

Tiny cones of light illuminated the flagstone path to Rumina’s bungalow. Above them, the dark green and white of magnolia blocked the stars. In the air was conifer and cedar, something of the ocean. Jun Do tore two strips of duct tape and hung them from Gil’s sleeves.

“That way,” Jun Do whispered, “they’ll be ready to go.”

Gil’s eyes were thrilled and disbelieving.

“So, we’re just going to storm in there?” he asked.

“I’ll get the door open,” Jun Do said. “Then you get that tape on her mouth.”

Jun Do pried a large flagstone from the path and carried it to the door. He placed it against the knob and when he threw his hip into it, the door popped. Gil ran toward a woman, sitting up in bed, illuminated only by a television. Jun Do watched from the doorway as Gil got the tape across her mouth, but then in the sheets and the softness of the bed, the tide seemed to turn. He lost a clump of hair. Then she got his collar, which she used to off-balance him. Finally, he found her neck, and they went to the floor, where he worked his weight onto her, the pain making her feet curl. Jun Do stared long at those toes: the nails had been painted bright red.

At first, Jun Do had been thinking, Grab her here , pressure her there , but then a sick feeling rose in him. As the two rolled, Jun Do could see that she had wet herself, and the rawness of it, the brutality of what was happening, was newly clear to him. Gil was bringing her into submission, taping her wrists and ankles, and she was kneeling now, him laying out the bag and unzipping it. When he spread the opening for her, her eyes—wide and wet—failed, and her posture went woozy. Jun Do pulled off his glasses, and things were better with the blur.

Outside, he breathed deeply. He could hear Gil struggling to fold her up so she would fit in the bag. The stars over the ocean, fuzzy now, made him remember how free he’d felt on that first night crossing of the Sea of Japan, how at home he was on a fishing vessel. Back inside, he saw Gil had zipped the bag so that only Rumina’s face showed, her nostrils flaring for oxygen. Gil stood over her, exhausted but smiling. He pressed the fabric of his pants against his groin so she could see the outline of his erection. When her eyes went wide, he pulled the zipper shut.

Quickly, they went through her possessions. Gil pocketed yen and a necklace of red and white stones. Jun Do didn’t know what to grab. On a table were medicine bottles, cosmetics, a stack of family photos. When his eyes landed on the graphite dress, he pulled it from its hanger.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Gil asked.

“I don’t know,” Jun Do told him.

The cart, overburdened, made loud clacking sounds at every crease in the sidewalk. They didn’t speak. Gil was scratched and his shirt was torn. It looked like he was wearing makeup that had smeared. A clear yellow fluid had risen through the scab where his hair was missing. When the cement sloped at the curbs, the wheels had a tendency to spin funny and spill the cart, the load dumping to the pavement.

Bundles of cardboard lined the streets. Dishwashers hosed down kitchen mats in the gutters. A bright, empty bus whooshed past. Near the park, a man walked a large white dog that stopped and eyed them. The bag would squirm awhile, then go still. At a corner, Gil told Jun Do to turn left, and there, down a steep hill and across a parking lot, was the beach.

“I’m going to watch our backs,” Gil said.

The cart wanted free—Jun Do doubled his grip on the handle. “Okay,” he answered.

From behind, Gil said, “I was out of line back there with that orphan talk. I don’t know what it’s like to have parents who are dead or who gave up. I was wrong, I see that now.”

“No harm done,” Jun Do said. “I’m not an orphan.”

From behind, Gil said, “So tell me about the last time you saw your father.”

The cart kept trying to break loose. Each time Jun Do had to lean back and skid his feet. “Well, there wasn’t a going-away party or anything.” The cart lurched forward and dragged Jun Do a couple of meters before he got his traction back. “I’d been there longer than anyone—I was never getting adopted, my father wasn’t going to let anyone take his only son. Anyway, he came to me that night, we’d burned our bunks, so I was on the floor—Gil, help me here.”

Suddenly the cart was racing. Jun Do tumbled as it came free of his grip and barreled downhill alone. “Gil,” he yelled, watching it go. The cart got speed wobbles as it crossed the parking lot, and striking the far curb, the cart hopped high into the air, pitching the black bag out into the dark sand.

He turned but Gil was nowhere to be seen.

Jun Do ran out onto the sand, passing the bag and the odd way it had settled. Down at the waterline, he scanned the waves for Officer So, but there was nothing. He checked his pockets—he had no map, no watch, no light. Hands on knees, he couldn’t catch his breath. Past him, billowing down the beach, came the graphite dress, filling and emptying in the wind, tumbling along the sand until it was taken by the night.

He found the bag, rolled it over. He unzipped it some, heat pouring out. He pulled the tape from her face, which was abraded with nylon burns. She spoke to him in Japanese.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

In Korean, she said, “Thank God you rescued me.”

He studied her face. How raw and puffy it was.

“Some psychopath stuck me in here,” she said. “Thank God you came along, I thought I was dead, and then you came to set me free.”

Jun Do looked again for any sign of Gil, but he knew there wouldn’t be.

“Thanks for getting me out of here,” she said. “Really, thanks for setting me free.”

Jun Do tested the strip of tape with his fingers, but it had lost much of its stickiness. A lock of her hair was fixed to the tape. He let it go in the wind.

“My God,” she said. “You’re one of them.”

Sand blew into the bag, into her eyes.

“Believe me,” he said. “I know what you’re going through.”

“You don’t have to be a bad guy,” she said. “There’s goodness in you, I can see it. Let me go, and I’ll sing for you. You won’t believe how I can sing.”

“Your song has been troubling me,” he said. “The one about the boy who chooses to quit rowing in the middle of the lake.”