The Orphan Master's Son

by Adam Johnson

  The Dear Leader nodded.

  Commander Ga returned to the woman. “I hear you’ve talked to whale sharks,” he said to her. “And navigated by the glow of jellyfish.”

  “It didn’t happen the way they say it did,” she said. “She was like my sister, and now I’m alone, it’s just me.”

  “What’s she saying?” the Dear Leader asked.

  “She says she’s alone.”

  “Nonsense,” the Dear Leader said. “I’m down here all the time. I offer her comfort.”

  “They tried to board our boat,” she said. “Linda, my friend, she fired flares at them; it’s all we had to defend ourselves with. But they kept coming, they shot her right there, right in front of me. Tell me, how long have I been down here?”

  Commander Ga removed the camera from his pocket. “May I?” he asked the Dear Leader.

  “Oh, Commander Ga,” the Dear Leader said, shaking his head. “You and your cameras. At least this time it’s a female you’re taking a picture of.”

  “Would you like to meet a senator?” Ga asked her.

  Guardedly, she nodded.

  “You keep your eyes open in this place,” he said. “No more rowing with your eyes closed. Do that and I’ll bring you a senator.”

  The girl flinched as Commander Ga reached to pull the hair from her face, and she was wild-eyed with fear as the camera’s tiny motor whirred her into focus. And then came the flash.

  WHEN OUR interns first arrived at Division 42, they were issued the standard items—field smocks, which buttoned in the front, interrogation smocks, which buttoned in the back, clipboards, and, finally, mandatory eyeglasses, which lend us an air of authority, thus further intellectually intimidating our subjects into compliance. All the members of the Pubyok team had been issued gear bags that contained items designed to brutalize and punish—abrasion gloves, rubber mallets, stomach tubes, and so on—and it’s true that our interns looked disappointed when we broke the news that our team had no need for such things. But tonight, we handed Jujack a pair of bolt cutters, and you could see his face light with a sense of mission. He hefted the cutters before his eyes to find their balance point. And Q-Kee took possession of a cattle prod by rapid-firing the trigger so fast that our room strobed blue. I didn’t exactly travel in elite yangban circles, so I had no way of knowing who this Comrade Buc fellow would turn out to be, but I was sure he’d be an important chapter in our biography of Commander Ga.

  Then we all donned headlamps and surgical masks and took turns buttoning up the backs of each other’s smocks before descending the ladders that led into the heart of the torture wing. As we were unscrewing the hatch that led down into the sump, Jujack asked us, “Is it true that old interrogators get sent to prison?”

  Our hands stopped turning. “The Pubyok are right about one thing,” we told him. “Don’t ever let a subject get inside your head.”

  Once we were through the hatch, we sealed it behind us. Then we descended many metal rungs, protruding from the cement wall. Down here were four great pumps that pulled water from bunkers even deeper below. They activated a couple of times an hour, running for only a few minutes, but the heat and noise they generated was tremendous. This is where the Pubyok stored recalcitrant subjects, ones that were being softened by time and a humidity that steamed our lenses. A bar that ran the length of the room was bolted to the floor, and to this thirty-odd subjects were chained. The floor was sloped, for drainage, so that the poor fools on the lower side of the room slept in a skein of standing water.

  Few people roused as we crossed the room through a light drizzle of warm water that dripped from a concrete ceiling that was slick with green. We held our masks tight. Last year diphtheria stole into the sump, taking all subjects and pocketing a few interrogators as well.

  Q-Kee placed the prongs of the cattle prod against the iron bar and crackled off some juice—that got everyone’s attention. Most of the subjects covered their faces on instinct or rolled into a baby position. A man at the end of the bar, down in the water, sat up and barked in pain. He wore a torn, soaked dress shirt, underwear, and sock suspenders around his calves. This was Comrade Buc.

  We approached him and saw the vertical scar above his left eye. The wound had split the eyebrow in two, and it had healed so badly the halves of the brow missed each other. Who marries a woman that can’t sew?

  “Are you Comrade Buc?” we asked him.

  Buc looked up, blinded by the headlamps. “What are you, the night shift?” he asked, and laughed a feeble, unconvincing laugh. He put his hands up in mock defense. “I confess, I confess,” he said, but the laugh broke into a long cough—a sure sign of cracked ribs.

  Q-Kee put the end of the prod in the water and pulled the trigger.

  Comrade Buc was seized, while the naked man next to him rolled to one side and defecated into the black water.

  “Look, we don’t like this,” we told Buc. “When we’re in charge, we’re going to close this place down.”

  “Oh, that’s rich.” Comrade Buc laughed. “You’re not even in charge.”

  “How’d you get that scar?” we asked.

  “What, this?” he asked, pointing to the wrong eyebrow.

  Q-Kee lowered the prod again, but we caught her hand. She was new, she was a woman, and we understood the pressure to prove oneself, but this was not our way.

  We clarified: “How’d you get that scar from Commander Ga?” we asked, and signaled Jujack to cut the chain. “Answer that question for us and we’ll answer any question you like.”

  “A yes-or-no question,” Q-Kee added.

  “Yes or no?” Comrade Buc asked in confirmation.

  It was a bold move from Q-Kee, ill-advised, but we had to present a unified front, so we all nodded, and with a grunt from Jujack, the good comrade’s chains fell.

  Comrade Buc’s hands went straight to his face, to massage his eyes. We poured clean water on a handkerchief and handed it to him.

  “I worked in the same building with Commander Ga,” Buc said. “I did procurement, so I had my head under a black hood all day, ordering supplies on the computer. China mostly, Vietnam. Ga, he had his nice desk and a window, and he didn’t do any work. This was before he began his feud with the Dear Leader, before Prison 9 burned. Back then, he didn’t know anything about prisons or mines. The post was just a reward for winning the Golden Belt and for going to Japan to fight Kimura. That was a big deal after Ryoktosan went to Japan to fight Sakuraba and defected. Ga would bring me lists of things he needed, stuff like DVDs and rare bottles of rice wine.”

  “Did he ever ask you to order fruit?”

  “Fruit?”

  “Peaches, perhaps? Did he want canned peaches?”

  Buc studied us. “No, why?”

  “Nothing, continue.”

  “One day, I had worked late, it was just me and Commander Ga on the third floor. He often wore a white fighting dobok with a black belt, like he was in the gym, ready to spar. This night, he was leafing through magazines about taekwondo from South Korea. He liked to read illegal magazines right in front of us, saying he was studying the enemy. Just knowing about such a magazine could get you sent to Prison 15, the prison for families, the one they call Yodok. I often did the procurement for that prison. Anyway, these magazines have fold-out posters of fighters from Seoul. Ga was holding one up, appraising the fighter, when he caught me looking at him. I’d been warned about him, so I was nervous.”

  Q-Kee interrupted. “Was it a man who warned you or a woman?”

  “Men,” Comrade Buc said. “Commander Ga then stood. He had the poster in his hand. He grabbed something out of his desk and started walking toward me, and I thought, okay, I have been beaten up before, I can do this. I’d heard that once he beat you up, he never bothered you again. He began walking toward me. He was famous for his composure—when he fought, he never showed emotion. The only time he smiled was when he executed the dwi chagi, where he turned his back to the opponent, inviting his o
ffense.

  “Comrade, Ga said to me in a very mocking tone. Then he stands there, appraising me. People think I am a sycophant to go by ‘Comrade,’ but I am a twin, and as is custom, we both have the same name. Our mother called us Comrade Buc and Citizen Buc to identify us. People thought it was cute—to this day, my brother is Citizen Buc.”

  Ah, we should have seen this information in his file. Missing it was a mistake on our part. Most people hate twins because of the procreation bonuses their families receive from the government. This explains much of Buc’s exterior, and constitutes an advantage we should have exploited.

  “Commander Ga,” Buc continued, “held the poster out for me to view. It was just a young black belt with a dragon tattooed on his chest. Do you like this? Commander Ga asked. Does it interest you? He asked these questions in a way that implied a wrong answer, but I didn’t know what that might be. Taekwondo is an ancient and noble sport, I told him. And I must get home to my family.

  “All the lessons you need to learn in life, he said, will be taught to you by your enemy. Then, for the first time, I noticed that what he’d brought with him was a dobok. This he tossed to me. It was damp and smelled of groin. I’d heard that if you didn’t fight him, he beat you up. But if you did fight back, he might do something much worse to you, something unthinkable.

  “Very crisply, I said, I do not wish to wear a dobok.

  “Of course, he said. It is optional.

  “I just looked at him, trying to see in his eyes what would happen next.

  “We are vulnerable, he told me. We must always be ready. First let’s check your core strength. He unbuttoned my shirt and then pulled it open. He put his ear to my chest and thumped me on the sides and back. He repeated this with my stomach. He would thump me hard and say something like Lungs clear, kidneys strong, avoid the alcohol. Then he had to check my symmetry, he said. He had a little camera, very small, and he photographed my symmetry.”

  We asked Buc, “Did Commander Ga wind the film or was there a sound of a camera motor winding the film?”

  “No,” he said.

  “No whir or anything?”

  “It beeped,” Buc said. “Then Commander Ga said, The foreigner’s first impulse is toward aggression. He told me I needed to learn how to fight off this force. Repelling foreign impulses from without is how you prepare yourself to repel them from within, he said. The Commander then presented several scenarios like, what would I do if the Americans landed on the roof and rappelled down the air shafts? And what would I do if confronted with a Japanese man attack?

  “A man attack? I asked him.

  “He put his hand on my shoulder, pulled my arm straight, and got ahold of my hip. A homosexual attack, Ga said, as if I was stupid. The Japanese are famous for this. In Manchuria, the Japanese raped everything, men, women, the pandas in the zoo. He tripped me, and I went down, cutting my eye on the corner of a desk. That’s the story, that’s how I got this scar. And now the answer to my question.”

  Here Comrade Buc stopped, as if he knew it drove us crazy not to get an ending. “Please do continue,” we suggested.

  “I must have my answer first,” he said. “The other interrogators, the old ones, they are always lying to me. They say, Tell us your means of secret communication. Your children would like to see you, they’re right upstairs. Talk and you may visit with your wife. She is waiting for you. Tell us your role in the plot and you can go home with your family.”

  “Our team does not use deception,” we told him. “We’ll answer your question, and if you like, you can verify it for yourself.” We’d brought Comrade Buc’s file. Jujack held it up, and Buc recognized the folder’s official blue sleeve and red tab.

  Comrade Buc stared at us a moment, then said, “When I fell, it was face first, and Commander Ga landed on my back. He just sat there, lecturing me. Blood filled my eye. Using his leverage, Commander Ga wrestled my right hand out, then twisted it back.”

  Q-Kee, wide-eyed with the story, said, “That move’s called a reverse Kimura.”

  “You can’t believe how it hurt—my shoulder, it was never the same. Please, I called out. I was just working late, please, Commander Ga, let me go. He released the hold, but continued to sit on my back. How can you not fight off a man attack? he asked. For the love of everything, there’s nothing worse, there’s nothing more base that can happen to a man—in fact, he’s not even a man after it. How could you not die trying to stop it, no matter what … unless you wanted it, unless you secretly wanted a man attack and that’s why you failed to repel it. Well, you’re lucky it was only me and not some Japanese. You’re lucky I was strong enough to protect you, you should be thanking your stars I was here to stop it.”

  “And that’s it?” we asked. “That’s where it stopped?”

  Comrade Buc nodded.

  “Did Commander Ga show any remorse?”

  “The last thing I remember was the flash of that camera again. I was facedown, there was blood everywhere.” For a moment Comrade Buc was silent—the whole room was quiet, nothing but the sound of urine trickling downhill. Then Buc asked, “Is my family alive?”

  This is where the Pubyok are better at handling some things.

  “I have prepared myself,” Comrade Buc said.

  “The answer is no,” we said. We moved Buc out of the water and re-chained him uphill. Then we began gathering our gear and heading for the ladders. His eyes were looking inward, a look we’re trained to recognize as a signifier of sincerity, since it’s nearly impossible to fake. True self-searching cannot be imitated.

  Then Buc looked up. “I will look at the file,” he said.

  We held it out to him. “Be careful,” we warned. “There is a photo.”

  He paused, at the cusp of taking the folder.

  We said, “The investigator said it was probably carbon monoxide poisoning. They were found in the dining room, near the heater, where they were all overtaken, before succumbing together.”

  “My daughters,” Comrade Buc said. “Were they wearing white dresses?”

  “One question,” we said. “That was the deal. Unless you want to help us understand why Commander Ga pulled this stunt with the actress?”

  Comrade Buc said, “Commander Ga didn’t have anything to do with the missing actress—he went into Prison 33 and didn’t come out. He died down there in the mine.” Buc then cocked his head at us. “Wait, which Commander Ga are you talking about? There are two of them, you know. The Commander Ga who gave me the scar is dead.”

  “You were talking about the real Commander Ga?” we asked. “Why would the false Commander Ga apologize for what the real Commander Ga did to you?”

  “He apologized?”

  “The imposter told us he was sorry for your scar, for what he did to you.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Buc said. “Commander Ga has nothing to be sorry for. He gave me the thing I wanted most, the one thing I couldn’t procure for myself.”

  “And what was that?” we asked.

  “Why, he killed the real Commander Ga, of course.”

  We all exchanged a glance. “So in addition to killing the actress and her children, you’re saying he killed a DPRK commander as well?”

  “He didn’t kill Sun Moon and her children. Ga turned them into little birds and taught them a sad song. Then they flew away toward sunset, to a place where you’ll never find them.”

  We suddenly wondered if it wasn’t true, if the actress and her children weren’t in hiding someplace. Ga was alive, wasn’t he? But who had her, where was she being held? It was easy to make somebody disappear in North Korea. But making them reappear—who has that kind of magic?

  “If you helped us, we would find a way to help you,” we told Buc.

  “Help you? My family is gone, my friends are gone, I’m gone. I won’t ever help you.”

  “Okay,” we said and began gathering our gear. It was late and we were wiped.

  I’d noticed that Comrade Buc was wearing
a wedding ring, one made of gold. I told Jujack to take it.

  Jujack looked back with trepidation, then took Buc’s hand and tried to shimmy it off.

  “It’s too tight,” Jujack said.

  “Hey,” Comrade Buc said. “Hey, that’s all I have left of them, of my wife and daughters.”

  “Come on,” I told Jujack. “The subject doesn’t need it anymore.”

  Q-Kee hefted the bolt cutters. “I’ll get that ring off,” she said.

  “I hate you,” Comrade Buc said. He twisted hard, cutting skin, and then the ring was in my pocket. We turned to go.

  “I won’t ever tell you anything,” Comrade Buc yelled at us. “You have no power over me now, nothing. Do you hear me? I’m free now. You have no power over me. Are you listening to me?”

  One by one, we began climbing the rungs that led out of the sump. They were slippery and required caution.

  “Eleven years,” Comrade Buc called out, his voice echoing off the wet cement. “Eleven years I procured for those prisons. The uniforms come in children’s sizes, you know. I’ve ordered thousands of them. They even make a half-sized pickax. Do you have children? For eleven years, the prison doctors order no bandages and the cooks ask for no ingredients. We ship them only millet and salt, tons and tons of millet and salt. No prison has ever requested a pair of shoes or even a single bar of soap. But they must have transfusion bags right away. They must have bullets and barbed wire tomorrow! I prepared my family. They knew what to do. Are you prepared? Do you know what you would do?”

  Climbing hand over hand up the galvanized steps, those of us with children tried to keep focus, but the interns, always the interns think they are invincible, right? Q-Kee led the way with her headlamp. When she stopped and looked down at the rest of us, we all stopped, too. We looked up at her, a halo of light above us.

  She asked, “Ryoktosan defected?”

  We were all silent. In the quiet, you could hear Buc preaching about children being stoned and hanged, going on and on.

  Q-Kee let out a groan of pain and disappointment. “Ryoktosan, too,” she said, shaking her head. “Is there anyone left who’s not a coward?”