The Orphan Master's Son (43 page)

Commander Ga didn't know what to do. The guests began forming a large, loose circle around himself and this short man with his fists high. A spotlight was suddenly on them. The little man bobbed up and down, then approached Ga quickly, within striking distance, before backing away. Ga looked around for Sun Moon, but all he could see were the bright lights. The tiny fighter danced up to Ga and performed a series of air strikes and shadow kicks. Then, out of nowhere, the imp punched him—a quick, snapping shot to the throat.

A cheer went up, people began singing along with the ballad.

Ga grabbed his windpipe and bent over. “Please, sir,” he said, but the
little man had moved to the edge of the circle, where he leaned against someone's wife to catch his breath and have another drink.

Suddenly the little man backcircled in for another shot—should Ga block the punch, try to reason with the man, run?—but it was too late. Ga felt knuckles rake his eye and then his mouth was stinging and fat and then his nose went electric. He felt the hot flush, inside his head, and then the blood poured out his nose and back into his throat. Then little Ryoktosan did a dance for everyone's pleasure, such as the Russian sailors do when on night leave from their submarines.

Ga's eyes had watered, and he couldn't see well. Yet again the small man came close—he connected with a left hook to Ga's body. Ga's pain responded on its own, sending a fist into the man's nose.

You could hear the plastic mask crumple. He took a few stagger-steps backward as blood trickled from the nostril holes and a collective gasp went up from the assembled guests. They placed him in a chair, fetched a glass of water, and then lifted his mask to reveal not the Dear Leader but a small man, weak-featured, disoriented.

The spotlight lifted to the balcony. There, clapping, was the true Dear Leader.

“Did you think it was me?” he called. “Did you think that was me?”

The Dear Leader Kim Jong Il came down the stairs, laughing, shaking people's hands, and accepting congratulations for a prank well done. He stopped to check on the little man in the
dobok
, leaning in close to inspect his wounds. “He is my driver,” the Dear Leader said and shook his head at the man's nose. But a pat on the back was in order, and the Dear Leader's personal physician was summoned.

People grew quiet as the Dear Leader approached Commander Ga.

Ga saw Sun Moon turn sideways to make her way closer, so she could hear.

“No, no,” the Dear Leader said. “You must stand up straight to stop the blood,” and despite the pain in his midsection, Ga straightened. Then the Dear Leader took hold of Ga's nose, pinched the nostrils shut above the bridge, and drew his fingers down to squeeze out all the blood and snot.

“Did you think it was me?” he asked Ga.

Ga nodded. “I thought it was you.”

The Dear Leader laughed and slung the mess off his hands. “Do not worry,” he said. “The nose is not broken.”

A handkerchief was handed to the Dear Leader. He wiped his hands as he addressed his guests—“He thought it was me,” he announced to the delight of the room. “But I am the real Kim Jong Il, I am the real me.” He pointed at his driver, whose eyes went suddenly wide. “He is the imposter, he is the one who pretends. I am the real Kim Jong Il.”

The Dear Leader folded the cloth and gave it to Ga for his nose. Then he lifted Ga's arm. “And here is the real Commander Ga. He has beaten Kimura, and now he will defeat the Americans.”

The Dear Leader's voice rose, as if he were speaking to all of Pyongyang, all of North Korea. “In need of a real hero, I give you Commander Ga,” he said. “In need of a national defender, I give you Commander Ga. Let's hear it for the holder of the Golden Belt!”

The applause was grand and sustained. Within it, the Dear Leader spoke to him in a low voice. “Take a bow, Commander,” he said.

Hands at his sides, he bent at the waist, holding it a moment, observing drops of blood as they fell from his nose to the opera house carpet. When he rose, as if on cue a small fleet of beautiful servants emerged with trays of champagne. Above, Dak-Ho began singing “Unsung Heroes,” the theme song from Sun Moon's first starring role.

Commander Ga looked to Sun Moon, and her face confirmed that she now understood that it didn't matter if her husband was alive or dead—he had been replaced and she would never see him again.

She turned, and he followed.

He caught her at an empty table, where she took a seat amid other people's coats and bags. “What about your movie?” he asked. “What did you find out?”

Her hands were shaking in front of her. “There will be no movie,” she said. The sadness was pure on her face, it was the opposite of acting.

She was going to cry. He tried to comfort her, but she wouldn't have it.

“Nothing like this has ever happened to me,” Sun Moon said. “And now everything has gone wrong.”

“Not everything,” he said.

“Yes, everything,” she said. “You just don't know the feeling. You don't know what it's like to lose a movie you worked on for a year. You've never lost all your friends or had your husband taken from you.”

“Don't speak this way,” he told her. “There's no need to talk like this.”

“This is what hunger must feel like,” she said, “this hollowness inside. This is what people must feel in Africa, where they have nothing to eat.”

He was suddenly repulsed by her.

“You want to know the flavor of hunger?” he demanded.

From the table's floral centerpiece, he plucked a petal from a rose. He tore off its white base, then placed the petal to her lips. “Open,” he said, and when she didn't, he was rough with the word. “Open,” he demanded. She parted her lips and allowed the flower in. She looked up at him with welling eyes. And here the tears spilled as slowly, slowly, she began to chew.

CITIZENS
,
come, gather 'round the loudspeakers in your kitchens and offices for the next installment of this year's Best North Korean Story. Have you missed an episode? They are available for playback in the languages lab of the Grand People's Study House. When last we saw the coward Commander Ga, he had been treated to his own taekwondo demonstration by the Dear Leader! Don't be fooled by the Commander's dashing uniform and cleanly parted hair—he is a tragic figure, who has far, far to fall before talk of redemption can begin.

For now, our dazzling couple was crossing Pyongyang late after an opulent party as, neighborhood by neighborhood, substation power switches were being thrown to cast our sweet city into slumber. Commander Ga drove, while Sun Moon leaned with the turns.

“I'm sorry about your movie,” he said.

She didn't respond. Her head was turned toward the darkening buildings.

He said, “You can make another.”

She dug through her purse, and then in frustration closed it.

“My husband never let me run out of cigarettes, not once,” she said. “He had some special hiding place for the cartons, and every morning, there was a fresh pack under my pillow.”

The Pyongchon eating district extinguished as they drove through it, and then one, two, three, the housing blocks along Haebangsan Street went black. Nighty-night, Pyongyang. You earned it. No nation sleeps as North Korea sleeps. After lights-out, there is a collective exhale as heads hit pillows across a million households. When the tireless generators wind down for the night and their red-hot turbines begin to cool, no lights glare on alone, no refrigerator buzzes dully through the dark. There's just eye-closing satisfaction and then deep, powerful dreams of work quotas fulfilled and the embrace of reunification. The American citizen, however, is wide awake.
You should see a satellite photo of that confused nation at night—it's one grand swath of light, glaring with the sum of their idle, indolent evenings. Lazy and unmotivated, Americans stay up late, engaging in television, homosexuality, and even religion, anything to fill their selfish appetites.

The city was in full darkness as they drove by the Hyoksin line's Rakwan station. Their headlights momentarily illuminated an eagle owl atop the subway's vent shaft, its beak at work on a fresh lamb. It would be easy, dear citizens, to feel for the poor lamb, plucked so young from life. Or the mama sheep, all her love and labor for nothing. Or even the eagle owl, whose duty it is to live by devouring others. Yet this is a happy story, citizen: by the loss of the inattentive and disobedient lamb, the ones on other rooftops are made stronger.

They began making their way up the hill, passing the Central Zoo, where the Dear Leader's own Siberian tigers were on display next to the pen that housed the zoo's six dogs, all gifts from the former king of Swaziland. The dogs were kept on a strict diet of soft tomatoes and kimchi to lessen that animal's inherent danger, though they will become meat-eaters again when it comes time for the Americans to visit!

In the headlights they saw a man running from the zoo with an ostrich egg in his hands. Chasing him up the hill with flashlights were two watchmen.

“Do you feel for the man hungry enough to steal?” Commander Ga asked as they drove by. “Or for the men who must hunt him down?”

“Isn't it the bird who suffers?” Sun Moon asked.

They passed the cemetery, which was dark, as was the Fun Fair, its gondola chairs hanging pure black against a blue-black sky. Only the botanical gardens were lighted. Here, even at night, work on the hybrid crop program continued, the precious seed vault protected from an American invasion by a grand electric fence. Ga glanced at a cone of moths, high in protein, circling in a security light, and he became melancholy as he drove slowly up this last stretch of dirt road.

“This is a fine automobile,” he said. “I will miss it.”

By this, the Commander meant that, though our nation produces the finest vehicles in the world, life is transient and subject to hardships, which is the entire reason the Dear Leader has given us Juche philosophy.

“I'll pass your sentiments along,” Sun Moon said, “to the next man who finds himself driving it.”

Here, the good actress is agreeing that the car is not theirs, but rather is the property of the citizens of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Dearest General who leads us. She is wrong, however, to suggest that she does not belong to her husband, for a wife has certain obligations, and to these she is bound.

Commander Ga pulled up before the house. The dust cloud that had been trailing them now caught up, ghostly in the headlights and the front door they illuminated. Sun Moon stared at this door with uncertainty, trepidation.

“Is this a dream?” Sun Moon asked. “Tell me it's only a movie I'm in.” But enough of your moods, the two of you! It's time for sleep. Off to bed, now …

Oh, Sun Moon, our heart never stops going out to you!

Let us all repeat together: We miss you, Sun Moon!

Finally, citizens, a warning that tomorrow's installment contains an adult situation, so protect the ears of our littlest citizens as the actress Sun Moon decides whether she will open herself fully to her new husband Commander Ga, as is required by law of a wife, or whether she will make a misguided declaration of chastity.

Remember, female citizens, however admirable it may be to remain chaste to a missing husband, such a sense of duty is misplaced. Whenever a loved one disappears, there is bound to be a lingering hurt. The Americans have the saying “Time heals all wounds.” But this is not true. Experiments have shown that healing is hastened only by self-criticism sessions, the inspirational tracts of Kim Jong Il, and replacement persons. So when the Dear Leader gives you a new husband, give yourself to him. Still: We love you, Sun Moon!

Again: We love you, Sun Moon!

Show your vigor, citizens.

Repeat: We admire you, Sun Moon!

Yes, citizens, that's better.

Louder: We emulate your sacrifice, Sun Moon!

Let the Great Leader Kim Il Sung himself hear you in heaven!

All together: We will bathe in the blood of the Americans who came to our great nation to hurt you!

But we get ahead of ourselves. That is for a future episode.

HOME FROM
the Dear Leader's party, Commander Ga studied Sun Moon's evening routine. First, she lit an oil lantern, the kind they place on the beaches of Cheju so night fishermen can navigate their skiffs. She let the dog inside, then checked the bedroom to see that the children were asleep. When she did, she left the doors open for the first time. Inside, by the glow of her lamp, he saw a low mattress and rolled ox-hair mats.

In the dark kitchen, he pulled a bottle of Ryoksong from the cool place under the sink. The beer was good, and the bottle soothed his stiffening hand. He didn't want to see what his face looked like. She inspected his knuckles, a little fan of yellow beginning to show.

“I have nursed many broken hands,” she said. “This is only a sprain.”

“You think that driver was okay? It looked like I broke his nose.”

She shrugged. “You have chosen to impersonate a man dedicated to violence,” she said. “These things happen.”

“You've got it backward,” he answered. “Your husband chose me.”

“Does it matter? You're him now, aren't you? Commander Ga Chol Chun—is that what I should call you?”

“Look at how your children hide their eyes, how they're afraid to move. I don't want to be the man who taught them that.”

“Tell me, then. What should I call you?”

He shook his head.

Her face agreed it was a difficult problem.

The lamp's light cast shadows that gave form to her body. She leaned against the counter and stared at the cabinets as if she were seeing the contents inside. But really she was looking the other way, into herself.

“I know what you're thinking,” he said.