The Orphan Master's Son

by Adam Johnson

  In the morning, he woke with a start—a dream ending with a flash of pain. The sheet smelled of cigarettes and sweat, and he knew that she’d slept next to him. Beside the pallet was a jar filled with urine that looked tinctured with iodine. At least it was clear. He reached to touch the jar—it was cold. When he managed to sit up, there was no sign of her.

  The light was amplified by the sea, filling the room. He pulled off his sheet. Bright bruising fanned his chest, and there were pressure cuts on the ribs. His stitches were crusty, and after smelling them, he knew they’d have to be expressed. The loudspeaker greeted him—“Citizens, today it is announced that a delegation is to visit America to confront some of the problems facing our two fearsome nations.” Then the broadcast went on in the usual formula: evidence of the worldwide admiration for North Korea, an example of Kim Jong Il’s divine wisdom, a new method to help citizens avoid starvation, and, finally, warnings to civilians from various ministries.

  A draft through the window set the dried fish swaying on their lines, the cartilage of their fins the color of lantern paper. From the roof came a series of yips and howls, and the constant clicking of nails on cement. For the first time in days, he felt a pang of hunger.

  Then the door opened and, breathing hard, the Second Mate’s wife came in.

  She was carrying a suitcase and two five-liter jugs of water. She was sweating, but there was a weird smile on her face.

  “What do you think of my new suitcase?” she asked. “I had to barter for it.”

  “What did you barter?”

  “Don’t be an ass,” she said. “Can you believe I didn’t own a suitcase?”

  “I guess you never went anywhere.”

  “I guess I never went anywhere,” she said to herself.

  She ladled some rice water into a plastic cup for him.

  He took a drink and asked her, “Are there dogs on the roof?”

  “That’s life on the top floor,” she said. “Broken elevator, leaky roof, toilet vents. I don’t even notice the dogs anymore. The housing council’s breeding them. You should hear them on Sundays.”

  “What are they breeding them for? Wait—what happens on Sundays?”

  “The guys at the karaoke bar say that dogs are illegal in Pyongyang.”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “Civilization,” she said.

  “Aren’t they going to start missing you at the cannery?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she knelt down and began rifling the pockets of the suitcase, looking for any evidence of its previous owner.

  Jun Do said, “They’re going to give you a criticism session.”

  “I’m not going back to the cannery,” she said.

  “Not ever?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m going to Pyongyang.”

  “You’re going to Pyongyang.”

  “That’s right,” she said. In a fold of the suitcase’s lining, she found some expired travel passes, stamped by every checkpoint between Kaesong and Chongjin. “Typically it takes a couple weeks, but I don’t know, I got a feeling it could happen any day.”

  “What could happen?”

  “Them finding my replacement husband.”

  “And you think he’s in Pyongyang?”

  “I’m a hero’s wife,” she said.

  “A hero’s widow, you mean.”

  “Don’t say that word,” she said. “I hate the sound of it.”

  Jun Do finished his rice water, and slowly, slowly lay back down.

  “Look,” she said, “it’s horrible what happened to my husband. I can’t even think about it. Seriously, whenever my mind goes there, something inside me just turns away. But we were only married a few months, and he was on a boat with you almost the whole time.”

  It had taken a lot out of him to sit up, and when his head touched the pallet, the comfort of yielding to exhaustion overtook the discomfort of recovery. Almost everything on him hurt, yet a feeling of well-being came over his body, as if he’d been working hard all day with his mates. He closed his eyes and felt the hum of it. When he opened them again, it was afternoon. Jun Do had a feeling that what had awakened him was the sound of her closing the door as she left. He rolled some, so he could see the corner of the room. There was the pan that she used to wash herself. He wished he could reach it, to check if the water was still warm.

  Come twilight, the Captain stopped by. He lit a couple of candles and sat in a chair. Looking up at him, Jun Do could see he’d brought a bag. “Look here, son,” the Captain said, and from the bag produced a slab of tuna and two Ryoksong beers. “It’s time to get your health back.”

  The Captain opened the bottles and sectioned the tuna raw with his bosun’s knife. “To heroes,” the Captain said, and, halfheartedly, they both drank. The tuna, though, was exactly what Jun Do needed. The fat of the sea, he savored it against the roof of his mouth.

  “The catch was good?” Jun Do asked.

  “The waters were lively,” the Captain said. “It wasn’t the same without you or the Second Mate, of course. We got a couple hands to help out from the Kwan Li. You heard their captain ended up losing his arm, right?”

  Jun Do nodded.

  The Captain shook his head. “You know, I’m real sorry about how they worked you over. I wanted to warn you, but it wouldn’t have made much difference.”

  “Well, it’s over,” Jun Do said.

  “The hard part’s over, and you took it well, no one else could’ve done what you did. Now comes the reward part,” the Captain said. “They’re going to give you some time to heal up, figure out exactly how things will work, and then they’re going to want to show you off. A hero who risked his life at gunpoint to save another hero who’d been fed to the sharks by Americans? Come on, you’re going to be a big story. They’re going to get some use out of you. After that thing with the Canning Master and then the captain of the Kwan Li, they need some good news. Anything you want, you’ll be able to name it.”

  “I’ve already been to language school,” Jun Do said, then added, “You think it’s possible, I mean with the currents and all, that he could make it back?”

  “We all love that boy,” the Captain said. “And mistakes were made, but he can’t come back. He’s not part of the story anymore. That’s not how the story goes now. You’ve got to get your head straight about that. The girl, she’s doing okay with this, right?”

  But before Jun Do could answer, the Captain noticed the chart on the wall. The room was dim, and he stood with his candle. “What the hell,” he said. He started tearing out pins and dropping them to the floor. “A week he’s been gone, and still that kid is tormenting me.” He pulled the chart free. “Look,” the Captain said, “there’s something you should know. Before, when we thought the Second Mate hadn’t taken anything with him, we really hadn’t looked close enough. We didn’t think to check down in the hold, where your equipment was.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “One of your radios is gone. He took a radio with him.”

  “Was it the black one?” Jun Do asked. “Or the one with the silver handles?”

  “The one with the green dials,” the Captain said. “Is that going to be a problem? Is this going to hurt us?”

  Jun Do could see it so clearly now, the Second Mate out on the raft in the dark with nothing but a battery, the green glow of a radio, and cigarettes without matches.

  “That radio’s pretty basic,” Jun Do said. “We can scrounge another one.”

  “That’s the spirit,” the Captain said. He put on a smile. “Here, here, I’m being an idiot, have some more tuna. And the girl, what do you think of her? I talked to her, you know. She has quite a high impression of you. What can I get you, is there anything you need?”

  The beer was running right through Jun Do. “That jar over there,” he said. “Can you hand it to me.”

  “Sure, sure,” the Captain said, but when he picked it up, he eyed it with great suspicion. He looke
d like he was going to smell it, but then he just passed it along.

  Jun Do rolled to his side and brought the jar under the sheet with him. Then the only sound in the room was the sound of urine filling the jar in fits and spurts.

  The Captain talked over the sound. “Well, you’re going to have to do some thinking. You’re a hero now, and they’re going to ask you what you want. How about it, is there anything you’d pick?”

  When he was done, Jun Do opened his eyes. Then he carefully handed the jar to the Captain. “The only thing I’d like,” Jun Do said, “is to stay on the Junma. I feel comfortable there.”

  “Of course you do,” the Captain said. “Your equipment’s there.”

  “And there’s power at night.”

  “And there’s power at night,” the Captain said. “Consider it done. You now live on the Junma. It’s the least I can do. But what is it you really want, something only the officials can give you?”

  Jun Do hesitated. He took a pull of beer and tried to think of one thing that North Korea could give him that would make his life better.

  The Captain sensed his hesitation and started describing others who’d done great deeds and the prizes they’d asked for, “like the guys in Yongbyon who put out the fire at the power plant—one of them got a car, it was in the paper. Another guy wanted his own telephone—done, no questions, they ran a wire to his apartment. When you’re a hero, that’s how it works.”

  “I’d have to think about it,” Jun Do said. “You caught me a little off guard. I’m not so good off the top of my head.”

  “See, I knew that,” said the Captain. “I knew that about you because we’re family. You’re the kind of guy who doesn’t want anything for himself. You’re a guy who doesn’t need much, but when it comes to other people, the sky’s the limit. You showed it the other day, you really proved it, and now you’re acting like family. I went to jail for my crew, you know. I’m no hero, but I took four years so my boys could go home. That’s how I showed it.”

  The Captain was looking agitated, worried even. He was still holding the jar of urine, and Jun Do wanted to tell him to put it down. The Captain moved to the edge of his chair, like maybe he was going to come down to the pallet.

  “Maybe it’s just ’cause I’m old,” the Captain said. “I mean, other people have problems. A lot of people have it worse off than me, but I just can’t live without her, I just can’t do it. It’s where my mind goes, it always goes back to that, and I’m not mad or resentful about how it happened, I just need my wife, I’ve got to have her back. And see, you can do that, you’re in a position to make that happen. Very soon, you’re going to be able to say the word, and anything can happen.”

  Jun Do tried to speak, but the Captain cut him off. “She’s old—I know what you’re thinking. I’m old, too, but age doesn’t have anything to do with it. In fact, it only seems to get worse with each year. Who would have thought it would get worse? Nobody tells you that, nobody ever talks about that part.” The Captain heard some dogs moving across the roof, and he looked up at the ceiling. He set down the jar and stood. “We would be strangers for a while,” he said. “After I got her back, there would be things she couldn’t talk about, I know that. But a kind of discovery would begin, I’m sure of it. And then what we had would return.”

  The Captain took up his chart. “Don’t say anything,” he said. “Don’t say anything at all. Just think about it, that’s all I ask.” Then, in the candlelight, the Captain rolled the chart tight with two hands. It was a gesture Jun Do had seen him make a thousand times. It meant that a bearing had been chosen, the men had been tasked, and whether full nets or empty lay ahead, a decision was made, events set in motion.

  From below in the courtyard came a whoop, followed by a sound that might have been a laugh or a cry, and Jun Do somehow knew that at the center of these drunk people was the Second Mate’s wife. From above came the clicking nails of dogs standing to take an interest, and he followed the sounds as they moved to the edge of the roof. Even on the tenth floor, the windows managed to capture the sounds, and from all over the housing block came the squeaks of people cranking their louvered windows open to see which citizen was up to no good.

  Jun Do pulled himself up and by pushing a chair like a walker, he made his way to the window. There was just a sliver of moon, and in the courtyard far below, he located several people by their sharp laughs, though he could make out only the black sheen of them. He could picture the luster of her hair, though, the glow of her neck and shoulders.

  The town of Kinjye was dark—the bread collective, the magistrate, the school, the ration station. Even the karaoke bar’s generator was silent, its blue neon light gone blank. Wind whistled through the old cannery and heat waves emanated off the steaming chambers of the new. There was the outline of the Canning Master’s house and in the harbor was only a single light—the Captain reading late aboard the Junma. Beyond that, the dark sea. Jun Do heard a sniffing sound and looked up to the roof overhang to see two paws and a cocked puppy’s face looking down at him.

  He’d lit a candle and was in a chair, covered with a sheet, when she came in, unsteady through the door. She’d been crying.

  “Assholes,” she said and lit a cigarette.

  “Come back,” a voice yelled from the courtyard below. “We were only joking.”

  She went to the window and threw a fish down at them.

  She turned to Jun Do. “What are you looking at?” From a chest of drawers, she grabbed some of her husband’s clothes. “Put a shirt on, would you?” she said and threw a white undershirt at him.

  The shirt was small and smelled sharp, like the Second Mate. It was murder to get his arms through. “Maybe the karaoke bar isn’t the place for you,” he said.

  “Assholes,” she said and smoked in the other chair, looking up as if there was something she was trying to figure out. “All night long they were toasting my husband the hero.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I must have had ten plum wines. Then they started picking sad songs on the karaoke machine. By the time I sang ‘Pochonbo’ I was practically a wreck. Then they were all fighting to take my mind off it.”

  “Why would you spend time with those guys?”

  “I need them,” she said. “My new husband’s going to be picked soon. I have to make a good impression on people. They need to know I can sing. This is my chance.”

  “Those guys are local bureaucrats. They’re nobodies.”

  She grabbed her stomach in discomfort. “I am so tired of getting fish parasites and then having to eat chlorine pills. Smell me, I reek of it. Can you believe my father did this to me? How can I get to Pyongyang when I smell like fish and chlorine?”

  “Look,” Jun Do said, “I know it seems like a raw deal, but your father must have known the options. Certainly, he picked the one that was best for you.” It felt low and ugly to pass along the line that he’d fed so many times to the other boys—You don’t know what they were going through, your parents wouldn’t have put you in an orphanage if it wasn’t their best option, maybe their only one.

  “A couple times a year these guys would come to town. They’d line up all the girls, and the pretty ones, they just”—she leaned her head back and blew smoke—“disappeared. My father had a connection, he always got wind of it, and I’d stay home sick that day. Then he sends me down the coast to this place. But what’s the point, you know? Why be safe, why survive if you’re going to gut fish for fifty years?”

  “What are those girls now?” Jun Do asked. “Barmaids, room cleaners, worse? You think doing that for fifty years is any better?”

  “If that’s how it works, just say so. If that’s what happens to them, tell me.”

  “I have no way of knowing. I’ve never been to the capital.”

  “Then don’t call them whores, then,” she said. “Those girls were my friends.” She gave him an angry look. “What kind of spy are you, anyway?”

  “I’m just a radio guy.”
>
  “Why don’t I believe you? Why don’t you have a real name? All I know about you is that my husband, who had the maturity of a thirteen-year-old, worshipped you. That’s why he fiddled with your radios. That’s why he nearly burned the ship up reading your dictionaries by candlelight in the toilet.”

  “Wait,” he said. “The Machinist said it was the wiring.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “He started the fire?”

  “You want to know the other things he didn’t tell you about?”

  “I would have taught him some English. All he had to do was ask. What did he want it for?”

  “Oh, he was full of ridiculous plans.”

  “To get out?”

  “He said the key was a big distraction. He said the Canning Master had the right idea—make a scene so gruesome that nobody wants to go near it. Then you slip away.”

  “But the Canning Master’s family, they didn’t slip away.”

  “No,” she said. “They didn’t.”

  “And after the distraction, what was the plan?”

  She shrugged. “I never really wanted out,” she said. “He wanted the outside world. For me, it’s Pyongyang. I finally got him to see that.”

  All the exertion had exhausted Jun Do. He pulled the yellow sheet tighter around his waist, but really, he wanted to lie down.

  “You look tired,” she said. “Are you ready for your jar?”

  “I think I am,” he said.

  She got the jar, but when he reached for it, she didn’t let go. The two of them held it, and the candlelight made her eyes look bottomless.

  “Beauty means nothing here,” she said. “It’s only how many fish you can process. No one cares that I can sing except the boys who want to take my mind off it. But Pyongyang, that’s where the theater is, the opera, television, the movies. Only in Pyongyang will I matter. For all his faults, that’s something my husband was trying to give me.”

  Jun Do took a deep breath. When he used the jar, the night would be over, and he didn’t want that because when she blew out the candle the room would be as dark as the sea and the Second Mate upon it.