The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [121]
“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