by Adam Johnson
She needed him. It was completely clear how much she needed him.
She noticed that the front door was cracked and that her children were peeking out. She hooked loose a slipper and kicked it toward the door, which was quickly pulled shut.
“I don’t know anything about the movie business,” he said. “But I’ve brought you a movie, as a gift. It’s Casablanca, and it’s supposed to be the best.”
She reached up and took the DVD case, dirty and battered, from his hands. She quickly glanced at it. “That one’s black-and-white,” she said, then threw it across the yard. “Plus I don’t watch movies—they’d only corrupt the purity of my acting.” On her back in the grass, she smoked contemplatively. “You really don’t have anything to do with the studio?” she asked.
He shook his head no. She was so vulnerable before him, so pure—how did she stay so in this harsh world?
“So what are you, one of my husband’s new flunkies? Sent to check on me while he goes on a secret mission? Oh, I know about his secret missions—he alone is brave enough to infiltrate a whorehouse in Minpo, only the great Commander Ga can survive a week in a Vladivostok card den.”
He crouched beside her. “Oh, no. You judge him too harshly. He’s changed. Sure, he’s a man who’s made some mistakes, he’s sorry for those, but all that matters now is you. He adores you, I’m sure of it. He’s completely devoted to you.”
“Tell him I can’t take much more of this. Please pass that along for me.”
“I’m him now,” he said. “So you can tell him yourself.”
She took a deep breath and shook her head. “So you want to be Commander Ga, huh?” she asked. “Do you know what he’d do to you if he heard you assume his name? His taekwondo ‘tests’ are for real, you know. They’ve made an enemy of everyone in this town. That’s why I can’t get a role anymore. Just make up with the Dear Leader, won’t you? Can’t you just bow to him at the opera? Will you give my husband that request from me? That’s all it would take, a single gesture, in front of everybody, and the Dear Leader would forgive all.”
He reached to wipe her cheek, but she pulled away.
“These tears in my eyes,” she said. “Do you see them? Can you tell my husband of these tears?” she asked. “Don’t go on any more missions, please. Tell him not to send another flunky to babysit me.”
“He already knows,” he said. “And he’s sorry. Will you do something for him, a favor? It would mean so much to him.”
Lying on the grass, she turned to her side, her breasts lolling under the house robe, snot running freely from her nose. “Go away,” she said.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said. “I told you it’s been a long journey, and I’ve only just arrived. The favor is a small one, really, it’s nothing to a great actress like yourself. You know that part from A True Daughter of the Country, where, to find your sister, you must cross the Inchon Strait, still aflame with the sinking battleship Koryo, and when you wade in, you’re just a fishing-village girl from Cheju, but after swimming through the corpses of patriots in blood-red waters, you emerge a different person, now you are a woman soldier, a half-burned flag in your hands, and the line you say, you know it, will you say it to me now?”
She didn’t say the words, but he thought he could see them pass through her eyes—There is a greater love, one that from the lowest places calls us high. Yes, they were there in her eyes, that’s the sign of a true actress—being able to speak with just her expressions.
“Can you sense how right everything feels?” he asked her. “How everything’s going to be different? When I was in prison—”
“Prison?” she asked. She sat up straight. “How exactly do you know my husband?”
“Your husband attacked me this morning,” he said. “We were in a tunnel, in Prison 33, and I killed him.”
She cocked her head. “What?”
“I mean, I believe I killed him. It was dark, so I can’t be sure, but my hands, they know what to do.”
“Is this one of my husband’s tests?” she asked. “If so, it’s his sickest one yet. Are you supposed to report back how I responded to that news, whether I danced for joy or hanged myself in grief? I can’t believe he’s stooped this low. He’s a child, really, a scared little boy. Only someone like that would loyalty-test an old woman in the park. Only Commander Ga would give his own son a masculinity test. And by the way, his sidekicks eventually get tested, too, and when they fail, you don’t see them anymore.”
“Your husband won’t be testing anyone ever again,” he said. “You’re all that matters in his life right now. Over time, you’ll come to understand that.”
“Stop it,” she said. “This isn’t funny anymore. It’s time for you to leave.”
He looked up to the doorway, and standing there silent were the children—a girl perhaps eleven, a boy a little younger. They held the collar of a dog with thick shoulders and a shiny coat. “Brando,” Commander Ga called, and the dog broke free. The Catahoula bounded to him, tail wagging. It kept leaping high to lick his face, then flattening low to nip his heels.
“You got him,” he said to her. “I can’t believe you got him.”
“Got him?” she asked. Her voice was suddenly serious. “How do you know its name?” she asked. “We’ve kept the dog a secret so he won’t be taken by the authorities.”
“How do I know his name? I named him,” he said. “Right before I sent him to you last year. ‘Brando’ is the word that Texans use to say something is yours forever.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, and all the theatrics were gone. “Just who exactly are you?”
“I’m the good husband. I’m the one who’s going to make everything up to you.”
There was a look on her face that Ga recognized, and it was not a happy one. It expressed an understanding that everything would be different now, that the person you’d been and the life you’d been living were over. It was a tough knowledge to suddenly gain, but it got better with tomorrows. And it would be easier since she’d probably worn that look once before, when the Dear Leader gave her, as a prize, to the winner of the Golden Belt, the man who’d beat Kimura.
In his dark room in Division 42, the smoldering cigarette in Commander Ga’s lips was nearly finished. It had been a long day, and the memory of Sun Moon had saved him yet again. But it was time to put her away in his mind—she’d always be there when he needed her. He smiled a last time at the thought of her, causing the cigarette to fall from his mouth into the well where his neck curved into collarbone. There it burned slowly against his skin, a tiny red glow in an otherwise black room.
Pain, what was pain?
CITIZENS, we bring good news! In your kitchens, in your offices, on your factory floors—wherever you hear this broadcast, turn up the volume! The first success we have to report is that our Grass into Meat Campaign is a complete triumph. Still, much more soil needs to be hauled to the rooftops, so all housing-block managers are instructed to schedule extra motivation meetings.
Also, this month’s recipe contest is upon us, citizens. The winning recipe will be painted on the front wall of the central bus terminal for all to copy down. The winner will be the citizen who submits the best recipe for: Celery Root Noodles!
Now for world news. Naked aggression continues from America—currently, two nuclear attack groups are parked in the East Sea, while in the U.S. Mainland, homeless citizens lie urine-soaked in the streets. And in poor South Korea, our soiled little sister, there is more flooding and hunger. Don’t worry, help is on the way—Dear Leader Kim Jong Il has ordered that sandbags and food shipments be sent south right away.
Finally, the first installment of this year’s Best North Korean Story begins today. Close your eyes and picture for a moment our national actress Sun Moon. Banish from your minds the foolish stories and gossip that have lately swirled our city about her. Picture her the way she will live forever in our national consciousness. Remember her famous “With Fever” scen
e in Woman of a Nation, where, following her rape at the hands of the Japanese, the sweat ran from her brow to meet, with moonlight, the tears upon her cheek, only to tumble down to her patriotic breasts? How can one tear, tracing its brief journey, start as a drop of ruin, trail into a drip of resolution, and, finally, splash with national fervor? Certainly, citizens, fresh in your minds is the final image of Motherless Fatherland, in which Sun Moon, clad only in bloodied gauze, emerges from the battlefield having saved the national flag, while behind her, the American Army is in ruins, foundering and aflame.
Now imagine her house, perched on the scenic cliffs of Mount Taesong. From below rose the purifying scents of kimjongilia and kimilsungia being grown in the botanical garden’s hothouses. And beyond that, the Central Zoo, the most profitable zoo in the world, with over four hundred animals available, live and preserved. Picture Sun Moon’s children, their angelic natures filling the house with honorific sanjo music, courtesy of the boy’s taegum and the girl’s gayageum. Even our national actress must help the cause of the people, so she was canning kelp to prepare her family should another Arduous March occur. Kelp washes ashore in quantities to feed millions and, once dried, can also be used for bedding, insulation, masculine virility, and firing of local megawatt stations. See Sun Moon’s glimmering choson-ot as she purged the jars, observe how the steam made glisteny the contours of her womanness!
There was a knock at the door. No one ever knocked at this door, so out of the way is their house. This is the safest nation in the world, where crime is unheard of, so she didn’t fear for herself. Yet she hesitated. Her husband was the hero Commander Ga, often away on dangerous missions, as he was right now. What if something had befallen him, and here was a messenger of the state to deliver the bad news? She knew that he truly belonged to his nation, to his people, and that she shouldn’t think of him as hers, and yet she did—such was her love. How could she help it?
When the door opened, there stood Commander Ga—his uniform was crisp and on his chest were pinned both the Ruby Star and the Eternal Flame of Juche. He stepped inside and at the sight of Sun Moon’s great beauty, he brazenly undressed her with his eyes. Look at how he ogled her curves beneath her housecoat, how he studied the ways in which each small motion of her body heaved her chest. Look at how this coward treated the great Korean modesty of Sun Moon like rubbish!
The good citizen is thinking, How can you call the hero Commander Ga a coward? Did Commander Ga not famously complete six assassination missions via the tunnels under the DMZ? Does he not hold the Golden Belt in taekwondo, the most deadly martial art in the world? Did Ga not win for his bride the cinema actress Sun Moon, star of the movies Immortally Devoted and Oppressors Tumble?
The answer, citizens, is that this was not the genuine Commander Ga! Look at the photo of the real Commander Ga on the wall behind this imposter. The man in the picture had broad shoulders, a crenellated brow, and teeth worn down from aggressive grinding. Now look at the spindly man wearing the Commander’s uniform—sunken chest, girl’s ears, barely the notion of a noodle in his trousers. Certainly it is an insult to do this imposter the honor of being called Commander Ga, but for the beginning of this story, it will suffice.
He commanded, “I am Commander Ga, and you will treat me as such.”
Even though all her instincts told her this was not true, she was wise to set aside her own feelings and trust the guidance of a government official, for he bore the rank of minister. When in doubt, always look to your leaders for proper behavior.
For two full weeks, though, she was wary of him. He had to sleep in the tunnel with the dog, and he was only allowed out to taste of the broth that she prepared once daily for him. His body was lean, but he did not complain of the thin soup. Every day, she drew a hot bath for him, and he was allowed to enter the house from the tunnel to cleanse his body. Then, like a dutiful wife, Sun Moon bathed in his leftover wash water. Finally, it was back to the tunnel with the canine, an animal not meant to be domesticated. For an entire year, this beast had chewed the furniture and urinated at will. No amount of beatings from Sun Moon’s husband could get the dog to obey. Now, Commander Ga spent his time in the tunnel training the animal to “sit” and “lie down” as well as other indolent phrases from capitalism. Worst of the commands was “hunt,” which encouraged the beast to poach game from the public lands of the people.
For two weeks, this is the routine they kept, as if by maintaining it, the real husband would simply enter one day and all would be as if he never disappeared. As if the current man in her house were nothing but a smoker’s intermission in one of her epic film performances. Certainly this was difficult for the actress—look at her posture, observe how she stood flat-footed, arms crossed. But did she think the pain in her movies was pretend, did she think the portrayal of national suffering was fiction? Did she think she could be the face of a Korea that has been dealt a thousand years of blows without losing a husband or two?
For Commander Ga, or whoever he really was, he thought he’d finished with a life of tunnels. This tunnel was a small one—large enough to stand inside, sure, but barely fifteen meters in length, just enough to travel under the front yard and perhaps under the road. Inside were barrels of supplies for the next Arduous March. There was a single lightbulb and a single chair. There was a large collection of DVDs, though no sign of a screen on which to view them. Yet he was happy listening to the boy above blow the wobbly notes of his taegum. It was bliss to hear the pluckings of a mother teaching her daughter the melancholy way of the gayageum—he could picture their choson-ots spread wide across the floor as they leaned into the sorrowful notes. Late at night, the actress paced behind the closed doors of the bedroom, and in his tunnel, Commander Ga could almost watch her feet fall, so closely did he follow her movements. In his mind, he mapped the bedroom based on how many steps she took between the window and the door, and by the way she moved around certain objects, he was sure of the location of her bed and wardrobe and vanity. It was almost as if he were in the chamber with her.
On the morning of the fourteenth day, he had accepted that this was how his life might continue for a long time, and he was at peace with that, but little did he know a dove was headed his way with a most glorious message in its beak. Loosed from the capital, the dove’s wings fluttered above the Taedong River, turning in its bends sweet and green, while along the banks patriots and virgins strolled hand in hand. The dove swooped through girls from a Juche Youth Troop, skipping along in their darling uniforms, axes over their shoulders, heading to chop wood in Mansu Park. With delight, the white bird barrel-rolled through the May Day Stadium, largest in the world, then clapped its wings in pride over the great red flame of the Tower of Juche! Then up, up Mount Taesong, bending a wing in greeting toward the flamingos and peacocks in the Central Zoo, before veering wide from the electric fences surrounding the botanical gardens, ready to repel the next American sneak attack. A single, patriotic tear was shed above the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery, and then the dove was on Sun Moon’s windowsill, dropping the note in her hand.
Commander Ga looked up when the trapdoor to the tunnel was opened and Sun Moon leaned down, her robe opening slightly, the glory of a whole nation seemingly enbosomed in her generous womanliness. She read the note: “It is time, Commander Ga, to return to work.”
The driver was waiting to take Commander Ga into the most beautiful city in the world—observe its wide streets and tall buildings, try to find a single item of trash or stray mark of graffiti! Graffiti, citizens, is the name for the way capitalists deface their public buildings. Here are no annoying advertisements, cellular phones, or planes in the sky. And try to take your eyes off our traffic girls!
Soon Commander Ga was on the third floor of Building 13, the most modern office complex in the world. Whoosh, whoosh went the vacuum tubes all around him. Flicker, flicker went the green computer screens. He found his desk on the third floor, then turned his nameplate inward, as if to remind himself
that he was Commander Ga and his job was Minister of Prison Mines, that it was he who was in charge of the finest prison system in the world. Ah, there is no prison like a North Korean prison—so productive, so conducive to personal reflection. Prisons in the South are filled with jukeboxes and lipstick, places where men sniff glue and ripen each other’s fruit!
A whoosh dropped a vacuum tube into the hopper on Commander Ga’s desk. He opened the tube and removed a note, scribbled on the back of a requisition form. It read, “Prepare for the Dear Leader.” He looked around the room for the author of the note, but all the phone sweepers were hard at work typing what they heard over their blue headsets, and the procurement teams had their heads buried under the black cloth of their computer hoods.
Out the window, light rain had begun to fall, and Commander Ga could make out an old woman in a shift, now nearly see-through, making her way through the upper branches of an oak tree, hunting down acorns, which all citizens know is forbidden until acorn-harvesting season is officially declared. Perhaps years of prison inspection had given the Commander a soft spot for our older citizens.
It was then that the entire vacuum system came to a halt, and in the eerie silence that followed, everyone looked up to the maze of clear tubes overhead, knowing what was to follow: the system was being prepared for a personal delivery from the Dear Leader himself. Suddenly, the sucking whistle began again, and all eyes watched as a golden tube snaked its way through the system to land in the hopper at the edge of Commander Ga’s desk.
Commander Ga removed the golden tube. The note inside read only, “Would you do us the courtesy of your presence?”
The tension in the room was palpable. Was it possible that Commander Ga was not leaping high to run to the aid of his glorious leader? No, instead, he fumbled with the items on his desk, choosing to inspect more closely a device called a Geiger counter, made to detect the presence of nuclear materials, for our country is rich in deeply buried nuclear materials. Did he make a plan to put this valuable piece of equipment to work? Did he assign it a guardian for safekeeping? No, citizens, Commander Ga took this detector and climbed out the window, where he stepped onto a wet oak bough. Climbing high, he handed it to the old woman, saying, “Sell this at the night market. Then buy yourself a proper meal.”
