The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [106]
It kind of looked like some of that was sinking in, like Ga was coming around a little.
“My question,” he said.
We did owe him the answer to a question.
At the Academy, they had an old adage about electricity therapy: “Voltage closes the attic but opens the cellar,” meaning that it tends to disrupt a subject’s working memory but leaves deep impressions intact and surprisingly easy to access. So maybe, if Ga was lucid enough, we had an opportunity. We’d take what we could get.
“Tell us your oldest memory,” we said, “and then you get your question.”
Ga began as the lobotomized begin, without calculation or consideration, speaking in a voice that was lifeless and rote:
“I was a boy,” he said. “And I went for a long walk and got lost. My parents were dreamers and didn’t notice I was gone. They came to look for me but it was too late—I had wandered too far. A cold wind rose and said, ‘Come, little boy, sleep in my floating white sheets,’ and I thought, Now I will freeze to death. I ran to escape the wind, and a mine shaft said, ‘Come, shelter yourself in my depths,’ and I thought, Now I will fall down to death. I ran into the fields where the filth is thrown and the sick are left. There, a ghost said, ‘Let me inside, and I’ll warm you from within,’ and I thought, Now I will die of fever. Then a bear came and spoke to me, but I did not know his language. I ran into the woods and the bear followed me, and I thought, Now I will be eaten to death. The bear took me in his strong arm and held me close to his face. He used his great claws to comb my hair. He dipped his paw in honey and brought his claws to my lips. Then the bear said, ‘You will learn to speak bear now, and you will become as the bear and you will be safe.’ ”
Everybody recognized the story, one that’s taught to all the orphans, with the bear representing the eternal love of Kim Jong Il. So Commander Ga was an orphan. We shook our heads at the revelation. And it gave us chills the way he told the story, as if it actually was about him and not a character he had learned about, as if he personally had nearly died of cold, hunger, fever, and mine mishaps, as if he himself had licked honey from the Dear Leader’s claws. But such is the universal power of storytelling.
“My question?” Ga asked.
“Of course,” we told him. “Ask away.”
Commander Ga pointed at the can of peaches on his bedside table. “Are those my peaches?” he asked. “Or your peaches or Comrade Buc’s?”
Suddenly, we were quiet. We leaned in close.
“Who’s Comrade Buc?” we asked.
“Comrade Buc,” Ga said, looking into each of our faces, as if we were Comrade Buc. “Forgive me for what I did to you, I’m sorry about your scar.”
Ga’s eyes lost focus, then his head went back to the pillow. He felt cold, but when we checked his temperature again, it was normal—electricity can really throw off a body’s thermal regulation. When we were sure it was just exhaustion, Jujack motioned us to the corner of the room, where he spoke in a hushed tone.
“I know that name, Comrade Buc,” Jujack said. “I just saw it on an ankle bracelet, down in the sump.”
That’s when we lit a cigarette, placed it in Commander Ga’s lips, and then began gearing up for another trip beneath the torture complex.
WHEN THE interrogators had left, Commander Ga lay in the dark, smoking. In pain school, they’d taught him to find his reserve, a private place he could go in unbearable moments. A pain reserve was like a real reserve—you put a fence around it, attended to its welfare, kept it pristine, and dealt with all trespassers. Nobody could ever know what your pain reserve was, even if you’d chosen the most obvious, rudimentary element of your life, because if you lost your pain reserve, you’d lost