by Adam Johnson
“Well, that’s good,” Gil said. “Because all the orphans in my land-mine unit knew how to do was take—your cigarettes, your socks, your shoju. Don’t you hate it when someone takes your shoju? In my unit, they gobbled up everything around them, like a dog digests its pups, and for thanks, they left you the puny nuggets of their shit.”
Jun Do gave the smile that puts people at ease in the moment before you strike them.
Gil went on. “But you’re a decent guy. You’re loyal like the guy in the martyr story. You don’t need to tell yourself that your father was this and your mother was that. You can be anyone you want. Reinvent yourself for a night. Forget about that drunk and the nail hole in the wall.”
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.
“Beli
eve 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.”
“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.
“In this whole stupid country,” Jun Do said, “the only thing that made sense to me were the Korean ladies on their knees cleaning the feet of the Japanese.”
“I could take you to the South Korean embassy tomorrow. It’s just a train ride. In six weeks you’d be in Seoul. You’d be very useful to them, a real prize.”
“Your mother, your father,” Jun Do said. “They’ll get sent to the camps.”
“Whether you’re a good karaoke singer or bad, eventually your number comes up. It’s only a matter of time.”
“What about Officer So—will some fancy whiskey make you forget him digging in the dark of Prison 9?”
“He’s the reason to leave,” Gil said. “So you don’t become him.”
“Well, he sends his regards,” Jun Do said and dropped the loop of nylon over Gil’s head, pulling the slack so the strap was snug around his neck.
Gil downed his whiskey. “I’m just a person,” he said. “I’m just a nobody who wants out.”
The bartender saw the leash. Covering her mouth, she said, “Homo janai.”
“I guess I don’t need to translate that,” Gil said.
Jun Do gave the leash a tug and they both stood.
Gil closed his watercolor tin, then bowed to the bartender. “Chousenjin ni turesarareru yo,” he said to her. With her phone, she took a picture of the two of them, then poured herself a drink. She lifted it in Gil’s honor before drinking.
“Fucking Japanese,” Gil said. “You’ve got to love them. I said I was being kidnapped to North Korea, and look at her.”
“Take a good, long look,” Jun Do said and lifted the motorcycle key from the bar.
Past the shore break, they motored into swells sharpened by the wind—the black inflatable lifted, then dropped flat in the troughs. Everyone held the lifeline to steady themselves. Rumina sat in the nose, fresh tape around her hands. Officer So had draped his jacket around her—except for that, her body was bare and blue with cold.
Jun Do and Gil sat on opposite sides of the raft, but Gil wouldn’t look at him. When they reached open water, Officer So backed off the engine enough that Jun Do could be heard.
