The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [109]
Almost immediately, Sun Moon answered. She wore a loose house robe, under which her breasts swung free. He’d seen such a house robe only once before, in Texas, hanging in the bath of his guest room. That robe was white and fluffy, while Sun Moon’s was matted and stained with old sauces. She was without makeup, and her hair was down, falling across her shoulders. Her face was filled with excitement and possibility and, suddenly, he felt the terrible violence of this day leave him. Gone was the combat he’d faced at the hands of her husband. Gone was the look of doom on the Warden’s face. Wiped away were the multitudes Mongnan had captured on film. This house was a good house, white paint, red trim. It was the opposite of the Canning Master’s house—nothing bad had happened here, he could tell.
“I’m home,” he said to her.
She looked past him, peering around the yard, the road.
“Do you have a package for me?” she asked. “Did the studio send you?”
But here she paused, taking in all the inconsistencies—the lean stranger in her husband’s uniform, the man wearing his cologne and riding in his car.
“Who are you supposed to be?” she asked.
“I’m Commander Ga,” he said. “And I’m finally home.”
“You’re telling me you’ve brought no script, nothing?” she asked. “You mean the studio dressed you up like this and sent you all the way up here, and you don’t have a script for me? You tell Dak-Ho I said that’s cold, even for him. He’s crossed a line.”
“I don’t know who Dak-Ho is,” he said and marveled at the evenness of her skin, at the way her dark eyes locked on him. “You’re even more beautiful than I imagined.”
She undid the belt of her house robe, then recinched it tighter.
Then she lifted her hands to the heavens. “Why do we live on this godforsaken hill?” she asked the sky. “Why am I up here, when everything that matters is down there?” She pointed to Pyongyang far below, this time of day just a haze of buildings lining the silver Y of the Taedong River. She approached him and looked up into his eyes. “Why can’t we live by Mansu Park? I could take an express bus to the studio from there. How can you pretend not to know who Dak-Ho is? Everybody knows him. Has he sent you here to mock me? Are they all down there laughing at me?”
“I can tell you’ve been hurting for a long time,” he said. “But that’s all over now. Your husband’s home.”
“You’re the worst actor in the world,” she said. “They’re all down there at a casting party, aren’t they? They’re drunk and laughing and casting a new female lead, and they decided to send the worst actor in the world up the hill to mock me.”
She fell down to the grass and placed the back of her hand against her forehead. “Go on, get out of here. You’ve had your fun. Go tell Dak-Ho how the old actress wept.” She tried to wipe her eyes. Then, from her house robe, she produced a pack of cigarettes. She brazenly lit one—it made her look mannish and seductive. “Not a single script, an entire year without a script.”
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.