The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [126]
“I’m not going down there alone,” she said. “I’ve never even been down there. You can’t abandon us in some hole.”
Comrade Buc came onto his balcony again. He was buttoning his collar. “Come over,” he said and threw a black tie around his neck. “We are ready over here. Time is short, and you must join us.”
Instead, Ga went to the kitchen and stood before the washtub on the floor. The washtub was fixed to a trapdoor that lifted to reveal the ladder down to the tunnel. Ga took a deep breath and descended. He tried not to think of the minehead of Prison 33, of entering the mine in darkness every morning and emerging from the mine in darkness each night.
Sun Moon brought the boy and the girl. Ga helped them down and pulled a string that turned on the lightbulb. When it was Sun Moon’s turn at the ladder, he told her, “Get the guns.”
“No,” she said. “No guns.”
Ga helped her down, and then closed the trapdoor. Her husband had rigged a wire that pulled the pump handle, and in this way, Ga was able to fill the tub with a few liters of water to disguise the entrance.
The four of them stood by the ladder a moment, their eyes unable to adjust as the bulb swung from its wire. Then Sun Moon said, “Come, children,” and took their hands. They began walking into the darkness, only to realize that, after just fifteen meters, barely enough to get beyond the house and the road out front, the tunnel came to an end.
“Where’s the rest of it?” Sun Moon asked. “Where’s the way out?”
He walked a little into the darkness toward her, but stopped.
“There’s no escape route?” she asked. “There’s no exit?” She came to him, her eyes wheeling in disbelief. “What have you been doing down here all these years?”
Ga didn’t know what to say.
“Years,” she said. “I thought there was a whole bunker down here. I thought there was a system. But this is just a hole. What have you been spending your time on?” Lining the tunnel were some bags of rice and a couple of barrels of grain, their U.N. seals still unbroken. “There’s not even a shovel down here,” she said. Midway into the tunnel was the sole furnishing, a padded chair and a bookcase filled with rice wine and DVDs. She grabbed one and turned to him. “Movies?” she asked. Ga could tell she would scream next.
But then they all looked up—there was a vibration, the muted sound of a motor, and suddenly dirt loosened from the roof of the tunnel and fell into their faces. A sort of terror came over the children as they coughed and clutched their dirt-filled eyes. Ga walked them back toward the ladder and the light. He wiped their faces with the sleeve of his dobok. In the house above, they heard a door open, followed by footsteps crossing the wood floors, and suddenly the trapdoor was lifting. Sun Moon’s eyes went wide with shock, and she took hold of him. When Ga looked up, there was a bright square of light. In it appeared the face of Comrade Buc.
“Please, neighbors,” Comrade Buc said. “This is the first place they’ll look.”
He lowered a hand to Ga.
“Don’t worry,” Comrade Buc said. “We’ll take you with us.”
Commander Ga took the hand. “Let’s go,” he said to Sun Moon, and when she didn’t move, he yelled, “Now.” The little family snapped to and scrambled out of the tunnel. Together, they cut through the side yard and into Buc’s kitchen.
Inside, Buc’s daughters sat around a table covered in white embroidery. Buc’s wife was pulling a white dress over the last daughter’s head while Comrade Buc brought extra chairs for the guests. Ga could tell that Sun Moon was at the edge of unraveling, but the calmness of Buc’s family wouldn’t allow her to do so.
Ga and Sun Moon sat across from the Buc family, with the boy and the girl between them, the four of them dusted with dirt. In the center of the table was a can of peaches and the key to open it. They all ignored the crow idling out front. Comrade Buc passed a stack of glass dessert bowls around, and then he passed the spoons. Very carefully, he opened the peaches, so quietly you could hear the key punch and cut, punch and cut, the tin complaining as