Adam Johnson: The Orphan Master's Son

“That was only an aria,” she said. “From a whole opera, one filled with subplots and reversals and betrayals.”

Jun Do leaned close now. “Does the boy stop because he has rescued the girl and on the far shore he will have to give her to his superiors? Or has the boy stolen the girl and therefore knows that punishment awaits?”

“It’s a love story,” she said.

“I understand that,” he said. “But what is the answer? Could it be that he knows he’s marked for a labor camp?”

She searched his face, as if he knew the answer.

“How does it end?” he asked. “What happens to them?”

“Let me out and I’ll tell you,” she said. “Open this bag and I’ll sing you the ending.”

Jun Do took the zipper and closed it. He spoke to the black nylon where her face had been. “Keep your eyes open,” he said. “I know there’s nothing to see, but whatever happens, don’t shut them. Darkness and close quarters, they’re not your enemy.”

He dragged the bag to the waterline. The ocean, frothy cold, washed over his shoes as he scanned the waves for Officer So. When a wave reached high upon the sand and licked the bag, she screamed inside, and he had never heard such a shriek. From far up the beach, a light flashed at him. Officer So had heard her. He brought the black inflatable around, and Jun Do dragged the bag into the surf. Using the straps, the two of them rolled it into the boat.

“Where’s Gil?” he asked.

“Gil’s gone,” Jun Do said. “He was right beside me, and then he wasn’t.”

They were knee-deep in waves, steadying the boat. The lights of the city were reflected in Officer So’s eyes. “You know what happened to the other mission officers?” he asked. “There were four of us. Now there’s only me. The others are in Prison 9—have you heard of that place, tunnel man? The whole prison’s underground. It’s a mine, and when you go in, you never see the sun again.”

“Look, scaring me isn’t going to change anything. I don’t know where he is.”

Officer So went on, “There’s an iron gate at the minehead, and once you pass that, that’s it—there are no guards inside, no doctors, no cafeteria, no toilets. You just dig in the dark, and when you get some ore, you drag it to the surface to trade through the bars for food and candles and pickaxes. Even the bodies don’t come out.”

“He could be anywhere,” Jun Do said. “He speaks Japanese.”

From the bag came Rumina’s voice. “I can help you,” she said. “I know Niigata like the lines on my palm. Let me out, and I swear I’ll find him.”

They ignored her.

“Who is this guy?” Jun Do asked.

“The spoiled kid of some minister,” Officer So said. “That’s what they tell me. His dad sent him here to toughen him up. You know—the hero’s son’s always the meekest.”

Jun Do turned and considered the lights of Niigata.

Officer So put his hand on Jun Do’s shoulder. “You’re soldierly,” he said. “When it comes time to dispense, you dispense.” He removed the bag’s nylon shoulder strap and made a slip loop at one end. “Gil’s got a noose around our fucking necks. Now it’s his turn.”

Jun Do walked the warehouse district with a strange calm. The moon, such as it was, reflected the same in every puddle, and when a bus stopped for him, the driver took one look and asked for no fare. The bus was empty except for two old Korean men in back. They still wore their white paper short-order hats. Jun Do spoke to them, but they shook their heads.

Jun Do needed the motorcycle to stand a chance of finding Gil in this city. But if Gil had any brain at all, he and the bike were long gone. When Jun Do finally rounded the corner to the whiskey bar, the black motorcycle gleamed at the curb. He threw his leg over the seat, touched the handlebars. But when he felt under the lip of the tank, there was no key. He turned to the bar’s front windows, and there through the glass was Gil, laughing with the bartender.

Jun Do took a seat beside Gil, who was intent on a watercolor in progress. He had the paint set open, and he dipped the brush in a shot glass of water tinctured purple-green. It was a landscape, with bamboo patches and paths cutting through a field of stones. Gil looked up at Jun Do, then wet his brush, swirling it in yellow to highlight the bamboo stalks.

Jun Do said to him, “You’re so fucking stupid.”

“You’re the stupid one,” Gil said. “You got the singer—who would come back for me?”

“I would,” Jun Do told him. “Let’s have the key.”

The motorcycle key was sitting on the bar, and Gil slid it to him.

Gil twirled his finger in the air to signal another round. The bartender came over. She was wearing Rumina’s necklace. Gil spoke to her, then peeled off half the yen and gave it to Jun Do.

“I told her this round’s on you,” Gil said.

The bartender poured three glasses of whiskey, then said something that made Gil laugh.

Jun Do asked, “What’d she say?”

“She said you look very strong, but too bad you’re a pussy-man.”

Jun Do looked at Gil.

Gil shrugged. “I maybe told her that you and I got in a fight, over a girl. I said that I was winning until you pulled out my hair.”

Jun Do said, “You can still get out of this. We won’t say anything, I swear. We’ll just go back, and it’ll be like you never ran.”

“Does it look like I’m running?” Gil asked. “Besides, I can’t leave my girlfriend.”

Gil handed her the watercolor, and she tacked it on the wall to dry, next to another one of her looking radiant in the red-and-white necklace. Squinting from a distance, Jun Do suddenly understood that Gil had painted not a landscape but a lush, pastoral land-mine map.

“So you were in the minefields,” he said.

“My mother sent me to the Mansudae to study painting,” Gil said. “But Father decided the minefields would make a man of me, so he pulled some strings.” Gil had to laugh at the idea of pulling a string to get posted on a suicide detail. “I found a way to make the maps, rather than do the mapping.” As he spoke, he worked quickly on another watercolor, a woman, mouth wide, lit from below so her eye sockets were darkened. Right away it had the likeness of Rumina, though you couldn’t tell whether she was singing with great intensity or screaming for her life.

“Tell her you’ll have one last drink,” Jun Do said and passed her all the yen.

“I’m really sorry about all this,” Gil said. “I really am. But I’m not going anywhere. Consider the opera singer a gift, and send my regrets.”

“Was it your father who wanted the singer, is that why we’re here?”

Gil ignored him. He started painting a portrait of him and Jun Do together, each giving the thumbs-up sign. They wore garish, forced smiles, and Jun Do didn’t want him to finish.

“Let’s go,” Jun Do said. “You don’t want to be late for karaoke night at the Yanggakdo or whatever you elites do for fun.”

Gil didn’t move. He was emphasizing Jun Do’s muscles, making them oversized, like an ape’s. “It’s true,” Gil said. “I’ve tasted beef and ostrich. I’ve seen Titanic and I’ve been on the internet ten different times. And yeah, there’s karaoke. Every week there’s an empty table where a family used to sit but now they’re gone, no mention of them, and the songs they used to sing are missing from the machine.”

“I promise you,” Jun Do said. “Come back, and no one will ever know.”

“The question isn’t whether or not I’ll come with you,” Gil said. “It’s why you’re not coming with me.”

If Jun Do wanted to defect, he could have done it a dozen times. At the end of a tunnel, it was as easy as climbing the ladder and triggering a spring-loaded door.