The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [115]
An elevator was waiting for Commander Ga. Inside was a beautiful woman in a white-and-navy uniform with blue-tinted sunglasses. She did not speak. The elevator had no controls, and she made no movement. How it descended, and whether she operated it, Ga couldn’t tell, but soon they were dropping deep under Pyongyang. When the doors opened, he found himself in a glorious room, where gifts from other world leaders adorned the walls. There were rhino-horn bookends from Robert Mugabe, Supreme President of Zimbabwe; a black-lacquered longevity mask from Guy de Greves, Foreign Minister of Haiti; and a silver “Happy Birthday” platter signed to the Dear Leader by every member of Myanmar’s Central Junta.
Suddenly, there was a bright light. Emerging from this was the Dear Leader, so confident, so tall, striding toward Commander Ga, and Commander Ga felt all his earthly worries fall away as a sense of well-being overtook him. It was as if his very being were cupped within the Dear Leader’s own protective hands, and he felt only an urge to serve the glorious nation that had spawned such confidence in him.
Commander Ga bowed deeply and with total supplication.
The Dear Leader clasped him firmly and spoke, “Please, enough bowing, my good citizen. It has been too long, Ga, too long. Your nation needs you now. I have a delicious bit of mischief planned for our American friends. Are you willing to help?”
Why, citizens, did the Dear Leader show no distress at the appearance of this imposter? What is the Dear Leader’s plan? Will the extended sadness of the actress Sun Moon be lifted? Find out tomorrow, citizens, when we deliver the next installment of this year’s Best North Korean Story!
THE ELEVATOR plummeted deep into Bunker 13, where Commander Ga would meet the Dear Leader. Ga felt a sharp pain in his eardrums and his body felt limp, as if he were free-falling back into a prison mine. Seeing Comrade Buc—his smile, his thumbs-up—had opened a void in Commander Ga between the person he used to be and the person he’d become. Comrade Buc was the only person who existed on both sides of Commander Ga’s void, who knew both the young hero who’d gone to Texas and the new husband of Sun Moon, the most dangerous man in Pyongyang. Now Ga felt rattled. He felt newly aware that he wasn’t invincible, that it wasn’t destiny in control of him but danger.
When the elevator doors opened, deep in Bunker 13, a team of elite bodyguards gave Commander Ga an eleven-point body search, though it was nothing worse than what he’d experienced each time he’d returned from Japan. The room was white and cold. They took a cup of urine from him and a clipping of hair. He barely got his clothes back on before he heard the clacking of heels growing louder in the hall outside as guards saluted the approach of the Dear Leader. Then the door simply opened, and in stepped Kim Jong Il. He wore a gray jumpsuit and designer glasses that amplified the playfulness in his eyes.
“There you are, Ga,” he said. “We missed you.”
Commander Ga gave a long, deep bow, fulfilling his first promise to Sun Moon.
The Dear Leader smiled. “That wasn’t so hard,” he said. “That didn’t cost you anything, did it?” He placed a hand on Ga’s shoulder and looked up into his eyes. “But the bow must come in public. Isn’t that what I told you?”
Commander Ga said, “Can’t a man practice?”
“There’s the Ga I love,” the Dear Leader said. On the table was a mounted Siberian fox posed mid-pounce above a white vole, a gift of Constantine Dorosov, mayor of Vladivostok. The Dear Leader looked as though he might admire the fur of the fox, but instead he stroked the vole, its teeth bared against the threat above. “I should still be cross with you, Ga,” he said. “I can’t even count your wrongdoings. You let our most productive prison burn, along with fifteen hundred of our best inmates. I’m still trying to explain to the Chinese Premier your episode at that bathhouse in Shenyang. My driver of twenty years, he’s still in a coma. The new one