“Kenji came through for me,” I whispered in awe. From the name of the website and the prominence of yin-yang images, I knew that Mindy had come through for me too. My throat tightened as I wondered if I would ever get to prove myself worthy of her love.
“Excuse me?”
“Just reading out loud,” I said, clearing my throat.
“This page is not that interesting,” Gun Ho noted. “But I suppose that is typical for an ‘About’ page. They are not why people go to a website.”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, reluctantly clicking on the last tab. “Let’s just take a peek at the comments section to see how they have organized it.”
Expecting to find a sparsely populated page of a few desultory comments, I was amazed to see comments that dated from that very day, a new one even popping up as I scrolled down to view the immensity of the responses. “So great to finally find an adoption blog written by an actual adoptee and not the adoptive parents!” “THANK YOU!” “The entry on how your overdose permanently changed your relationship with your parents just broke my heart.” “Shame on you! I hope your adoptive mother doesn’t read this. What ingratitude!!!” “Please contact me if you are looking for an agent. This has all the elements for a great memoir.” “Methinks thou doth protest too much about not wanting to find your birth mother.”
Gun Ho rustled nervously as I lingered there, eyes racing to read as much as I could. “I do not think the comments page is important,” he announced, hand inching toward the keyboard.
“But we’re going to want a comments page on our website,” I protested, itching to type that I was here! in North Korea! and to please send Bill Clinton, or at least Jimmy Carter, to rescue me!!
“It seems unlikely your website will have a comments page,” Gun Ho said, and he exited out of the website.
I stared blankly at the screen, nodding as Gun Ho told me what I needed to do for him next, his droning voice lost in the sudden oceanic roar that filled my ears. Mindy was on the case, and she was bringing with her Margaret’s Pentagon contacts and Trip’s high-powered law firm. They were looking for me and wanted to bring me home. They were signaling to me that if I did my part and found a way to contact them, they would do theirs and rescue me.
Honey instructed me to move my Saturday session with Miura-san to the next day in my daily planner and write in “Fun with the Gang.” Sickened at the thought of having to be all chummy with them after they had been such willing participants in my humiliation, I pleaded with her, “Why do they have to come? Aren’t I enough company for you?”
“Are you jealous?” She seemed quite pleased with the thought.
“I don’t want to share you.” I thrust my lower lip out, an unhappy baby.
“That’s so sweet. But poor dears, their lives are so dull in Pyongyang. Besides, I want to show off the new you. I’ve been putting them off, waiting for the bruises around your eyes to fade away. After all the trouble we went through, it’s a shame to just keep you to myself.”
Which was just what I dreaded, having to accept their compliments as if they delighted me. Having to see the glee and the pity in their eyes at my comeuppance, me the cautionary tale that kept them all in line. Having to make small talk with the man who had broken my nose with his fist and then ruined it with his scalpel. “Can I have a bluie to help me get through the evening, please? Just to get me over my resentment at not having you all to myself.”
Since we were both in the throes of peak bluie at the time, Honey agreed, wrapping a pill in a silk handkerchief for me to take back to my room.
Bluie-blasted when I entered the Versailles room to greet the Gang, the urge to forgive burned ardently in my breast. As expected, they all oohed and aahed at the new me, the women marveling over my nose, the men making stupid cracks about how blondes have more fun, Dr. Panzov assuring me that he knew from a lifetime of experience. Honey stood by my side, petting compulsively at my arm, and I knew that she too had taken a bluie. She was wearing a navy gown with a deep V-neck, her collarbone taut against her skin, chest rippled with breastbone and ribs, and I thought that she better be careful with the liposuction or she would soon have all her insides sucked out of her.
Even the bluie could not make me amenable to Harvey’s or Wendell’s company, so I chatted with Patience and Lahela, or rather with Patience as Lahela nodded along, smiling when we smiled, laughing when we laughed. Before long, Wendell came to join us, standing just behind Patience and Lahela, head jerking to the side to signify that he wanted to have a word, before wandering away again. When dinner was announced, he and I lingered behind. Hooding over me like a cobra about to strike, he hissed, “Have you thought about my proposal?”
“Forget your stupid plan, Wendell. I have a plan, a real plan, and all I need is five minutes on the internet. Can you arrange that?”
He hesitated, eyes ticking back and forth as he calculated. “Yesss,” he considered tentatively. “But it’ll cost you a lot more money. Because you still have to get to Pyongyang. And then you’d have to pay a small fortune for my friend to take the risk of allowing you online access, because if he’s caught, he’ll be executed on the spot.”
“How much money?”
“That pretty watch might be enough.” He cuffed my wrist, twisting it this way and that to make the diamonds sparkle before I could wrest my arm away. “Big-ticket items, like the gold-plated lighters that are stashed in every room for when Jonny comes for a visit, or the silver salt and pepper shakers, are the fastest way to get your money. Don’t forget you also have to pay off Cookie. I’ve already discussed this with him, he’ll explain what you have to do.” He finished talking in a rush because we had arrived at the dining room, Yolanda waiting for us at the door, her suspicious gaze traveling from me to Wendell and back again.
When I returned to my room, still jazzed on the bluie, I perused my armoire for items to smuggle to Cookie, deciding I’d start small with a pair of cable-knit tights, which were much too warm to wear in the eternally mild climes of the compound.
Chapter 15
“Every adopted person has to deal with the fact of abandonment, and what that has done to them… I based so much of my being on whatever that was, and the anger that I held to my birth mother, that I needed her to stay in that villain place.”
–Frances McDormand
The bluie kept my mind spinning all night, constructing the perfect narrative of escape. I had thrown out the internet to Wendell more to shut him up than anything, but when he said he actually could get me access, my souped-up neurons seized upon that one detail, the gritty heart around which I spun a nacreous shell to form a flawless, shining scenario that seemed not only eminently logical but even inevitable: Wendell’s “friend” would smuggle me to Pyongyang, where I’d contact the Famous Adopted People website, returning to the compound the same night to wait for my rescue. Once the news of my captivity in North Korea became public, Jonny would be unable to kill me without triggering an international incident. Meanwhile, Jonny’s father would discover that Jonny had kidnapped me without his permission, thereby scuttling Jonny’s succession, so I would not only save myself but very possibly the entire planet as well. The ensuing power struggle would trigger the collapse of the whole regime and North Korea would be liberated, all thanks to me.
But in the gunmetal light of the approaching dawn, when the world had lost its bluie iridescence and my body ached for sleep but my heart could not be quieted, my eyelids spring-loaded to snap open every time I tried to close them, a sour taste secreting from my salivary glands and my jaw muscles twitching uncontrollably, I knew it was all delusion. The story was cracked from the beginning. Wendell himself hadn’t seen the internet in years, so why should I think he could get me access to it? More likely, Wendell was stringing me along, encouraging me to think there was a higher purpose for my petty thievery than turning a quick buck.
As I watched the first golden rays of sunlight appear across the ceiling, my stomach queasy but my bra
in finally quieting, I decided on two things: to take the tights to Cookie anyway and to never take a bluie again if I could help it. If, as I suspected, Wendell’s scheme was just a way for him to earn some extra cash, then maybe the money I made could come in handy at a later date for some reason as yet unknown to me. It was only prudent to keep all of my options open. As for the bluies, I could see the way that, in just a matter of months, they were erasing Honey, the once brilliant shine of her eyes now a scratched blurriness, her skin papery, pleating loosely across the backs of her hands, arms scored with the red tracks left by her scratching nails, limbs like rope knotted at the joints. I practiced cupping an imaginary bluie in my hand, where it would stay as I pretended to toss it in my mouth before transferring it to a pocket.
That afternoon, Miura-san looked as tired as I felt. “I am happy when guests leave,” he said with uncharacteristic vehemence. “It is too much work to feed everyone.”
“Do you ever get a day off?” I asked as he sifted a bag of flour onto the counter of the butcher-block island. We were going to attempt to make our own pasta today.
“Only one time a week on Tuesday,” he said mournfully, forming the flour into a mound, white particles floating spectrally in the air around him. “But I must make the foods for Tuesday on Monday. It is too much work, Lisa-san. I am old and very tired.” And he looked it, lower lids drooping to reveal the bloodshot whites of his eyes, puffy flesh pouched underneath, jowls hanging heavily as if too exhausted to stay on his face. “I miss my home. I am tired of living underground.”
“Where do you sleep?” I inquired. “Here in the compound?”
“We have servants’ quarters.” He pointed at the floor. “Down below.”
“Who lives there? Ting and that other woman?”
“Ting, Mei-ling, and others.”
“The guards? Is that where they watch the surveillance screens?”
“Sou, sou. And others.”
“What others?”
“You think only three or four people can run all this? We are many people here.”
“Where are they?”
“Where you are not.” He snickered, waving his fingers in the air, sending the flour motes swirling in random directions.
“Do you all live together?”
“Yes. We have our own rooms, and a room for playing, and a dining room, and, of course, a kitchen. We have our own chef!”
It was dizzying to think about—a whole community lurking below this one, the shadow world of a shadow world with invisible servants, hidden chambers, secret transactions, the chef with a chef. Remembering my own secret transaction, I offhandedly remarked, “So, um, I didn’t know you and Wendell were such good friends.”
He paused to wipe his forehead with a sleeve. “He is very friendly, like many Americans. Like you.”
I frowned—the comparison wasn’t flattering. “He said I should bring you things…” I let my words hang in the air with the flour dust.
He looked at me mournfully, fine white particles scurfing his stubbled cheek. “Yes.”
“I have something.” My hand patted at my waist.
“Sure, Lisa-san?” His eyes, normally hidden under half-mast lids, probed questioningly. “Maybe more safe not to.”
I replied emphatically, “I’m sure, Miura-san.”
He nodded slowly, slapping the clinging flour from his hands. “Let me show you where is the garbage.” He handed me the empty bag of flour and led me into the greenhouse, saying, “You know already we put foodstuffs there,” and pointing to the compost bin. “Here”—he opened the door of a small plastic shed—“we are putting glasses, metals, papers. Just like Japan, no?” A small, sad smile. “This”—he pointed at a large wooden box with a hinged lid—“is for every other garbage, for example, plastic, rubber, garbage from bathroom.” He entered the shed, which was too small to hold the two of us, and, dropping down into a squat, tugged at the bottom of the crate, which pulled out like a drawer. He didn’t say anything, only pulled it in and out twice, then stood up with a popping of his knees and exited the shed.
The drawer was not as easy to open as Miura-san had made it seem, requiring a good yanking. The tights left a damp patch of sweat where they had been tucked into my waistband. I hesitated, wondering if it was worth the risk, before sliding the drawer firmly back in place. Back in the kitchen, Miura-san was cracking eggs into a crater that he had scooped from the mound of flour. “How will I get the money, Miura-san?”
“Wendell-san give you next time he comes.”
“Can I trust him?” I fretted. “How will I know he’s giving me everything I’m owed?”
“Oh, Wendell-san is honest man,” Miura-san assured me, his cheeks shaking as he strained to work the eggs into the flour with a fork. “He always gives me my money.”
“I was surprised that you wanted some money from me as well, Miura-san,” I mentioned casually, shoring up the flour that trickled away from his fork. “I thought we were friends.”
He shaped the paste into a gooey ball, pressing down on it with the heels of his hands. “Before, I get salary in real money, sometimes yen, sometimes yuan. But now they only give won. I need money for going home. I want to open sushi-ya.”
“Can you really go home?” I pressed. “Won’t you miss your… young friends?”
His fists pounded at the dough. “Yes,” he said, and then again, “Yes.”
Heeding the advice of Kang Chol-Hwan, I kept busy, arriving at my “office” on time whether Gun Ho was to be there or not, diligently writing up article ideas like “A Day in the Life of a Salesgirl at the Paradise” or “How to Cook a Kaeson Hamburger in Your Own Home,” working the prescribed office hours to the minute. Honey’s schedule left me with very little free time, for which I was grateful, and the evenings that I didn’t spend with her, I read whichever book she had chosen for me, King Lear followed by The Man in the High Castle, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Through it all was Honey. We were a dynamic mother-and-daughter business duo, though our business was watching humorous video clips, browsing gossip sites, keeping up with the fashion blogs, poring over catalogs and haute couture websites, reveling in frivolity. The less uplifting it was, the more we worshipped it. If it was self-indulgent, unnecessary, a waste of precious resources, or absolutely useless, we studied it, debated it, endlessly dissected it. Occasionally, I updated her on the progress of the website, showing her a few beta pages that Gun Ho had produced, the text in Korean so I couldn’t read a word of it. But it looked good, with neon fonts that seemed to jump from the screen, a carousel of scrolling images, a scattering of animated GIFs.
One morning my knock at the door of Honey’s inner sanctum went unanswered. I waited some minutes to let Yolanda finish blow-drying Honey’s hair or buffing her fingernails or giving her a foot massage, or whatever it was that the two of them did together behind closed doors, before knocking again. Another long pause, so I bashed hard against the steel, the increased volume disproportionate to the pain that cracked through my knuckles. Putting an ear up to the door, I could hear nothing but the sound of my own breath drawing into and out of my lungs. Yolanda was never behind on the schedule, and I had an intuition—maybe mother-daughter, maybe a more prosaic awareness of Honey’s deteriorating state—that something was going on with Honey. I was just about to take off a spectator pump to bang on the door with the heel when it whipped open and Yolanda frantically waved me in. I could hear Honey yelling in the background and then a crash of something splintering into a thousand pieces.
“You must help me with Madam,” Yolanda panted, French twist unraveling down her neck, a popped-out button trailing from her jacket by a thread as we rushed together into the one room of Honey’s inner sanctum that I had not yet penetrated: her bedroom.
There, standing on an enormous bed that shimmered with crimson satin sheets and coverlet, a deranged Honey, hair in a ratty halo around her grinning skull face, screamed, “Ho
w can he blame me? It’s not my fault! I tried to warn him!”
One of the many mirrors decorating her walls had been shattered, jagged shards of glass clinging to the elegant gold chinoiserie frame, fragments tessellating the floor, catching the sun that poured in from the picture window in crazy flashes. Glass crunching under our shoes, Yolanda and I flanked Honey. Locking our arms around her, we managed to topple her onto her bed, where she flopped beneath us, slippery as a fish.
“Madam, I have your bluies all ready for you, all you need to do is take them.”
“Shut up, Yoyo!” Honey screamed, eyes squeezed shut, mouth an open wound that could not be stanched. “You’re not the one who just got called unspeakable names by her own son because his mistress gave birth to a baby daughter with blue eyes! You should have heard the horrible things he said to me! After all I’ve sacrificed for him!”
Wriggling out from underneath Honey’s prone body, Yolanda panted, “Don’t let go of her. I’ll be right back.”
“Have your bluie, Honey,” I advised, my voice coming out in jolts as I rode her bucking body like a broncobuster. “That will make you feel better.”
“I’ve sacrificed everything for that boy!” Her voice shattered and came back together again in a tortured howl.
“You’re a good mother. Everybody knows that,” I assured her in ragged gasps.
Yolanda returned, a plastic box tucked under her elbow. “Madam, Madam,” she crooned soothingly. “You must stop! You’re getting yourself much too excited.”
“Does he want me to pluck my own eyes out? Is that what he wants? Bring me something to do it with and I will!” She dry sobbed, chest heaving, legs flailing like two autonomous life-forms with wills of their own.
“Grab her other arm and lie sideways over her,” Yolanda hissed as she struggled to hold on to Honey’s arm.
I inched my body sideways to lay my stomach over her hips, pinning her upper body with mine while her legs kicked the air. I put a restraining hand over her womb, touching for the first time that place from which I had sprung. It was a hollow bowl between the twin blades of her hip bones, my palm sinking until it seemed to reach the knobs of her spine. “There, there, Mom. It’s OK. Everything’s going to be all right. Just relax and let Yoyo help you.”
Famous Adopted People Page 27
