The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [132]
People grew quiet as the Dear Leader approached Commander Ga.
Ga saw Sun Moon turn sideways to make her way closer, so she could hear.
“No, no,” the Dear Leader said. “You must stand up straight to stop the blood,” and despite the pain in his midsection, Ga straightened. Then the Dear Leader took hold of Ga’s nose, pinched the nostrils shut above the bridge, and drew his fingers down to squeeze out all the blood and snot.
“Did you think it was me?” he asked Ga.
Ga nodded. “I thought it was you.”
The Dear Leader laughed and slung the mess off his hands. “Do not worry,” he said. “The nose is not broken.”
A handkerchief was handed to the Dear Leader. He wiped his hands as he addressed his guests—“He thought it was me,” he announced to the delight of the room. “But I am the real Kim Jong Il, I am the real me.” He pointed at his driver, whose eyes went suddenly wide. “He is the imposter, he is the one who pretends. I am the real Kim Jong Il.”
The Dear Leader folded the cloth and gave it to Ga for his nose. Then he lifted Ga’s arm. “And here is the real Commander Ga. He has beaten Kimura, and now he will defeat the Americans.”
The Dear Leader’s voice rose, as if he were speaking to all of Pyongyang, all of North Korea. “In need of a real hero, I give you Commander Ga,” he said. “In need of a national defender, I give you Commander Ga. Let’s hear it for the holder of the Golden Belt!”
The applause was grand and sustained. Within it, the Dear Leader spoke to him in a low voice. “Take a bow, Commander,” he said.
Hands at his sides, he bent at the waist, holding it a moment, observing drops of blood as they fell from his nose to the opera house carpet. When he rose, as if on cue a small fleet of beautiful servants emerged with trays of champagne. Above, Dak-Ho began singing “Unsung Heroes,” the theme song from Sun Moon’s first starring role.
Commander Ga looked to Sun Moon, and her face confirmed that she now understood that it didn’t matter if her husband was alive or dead—he had been replaced and she would never see him again.
She turned, and he followed.
He caught her at an empty table, where she took a seat amid other people’s coats and bags. “What about your movie?” he asked. “What did you find out?”
Her hands were shaking in front of her. “There will be no movie,” she said. The sadness was pure on her face, it was the opposite of acting.
She was going to cry. He tried to comfort her, but she wouldn’t have it.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to me,” Sun Moon said. “And now everything has gone wrong.”
“Not everything,” he said.
“Yes, everything,” she said. “You just don’t know the feeling. You don’t know what it’s like to lose a movie you worked on for a year. You’ve never lost all your friends or had your husband taken from you.”
“Don’t speak this way,” he told her. “There’s no need to talk like this.”
“This is what hunger must feel like,” she said, “this hollowness inside. This is what people must feel in Africa, where they have nothing to eat.”
He was suddenly repulsed by her.
“You want to know the flavor of hunger?” he demanded.
From the table’s floral centerpiece, he plucked a petal from a rose. He tore off its white base, then placed the petal to her lips. “Open,” he said, and when she didn’t, he was rough with the word. “Open,” he demanded. She parted her lips and allowed the flower in. She looked up at him with welling eyes. And here the tears spilled as slowly, slowly, she began to chew.
CITIZENS, come, gather ’round the loudspeakers in your kitchens and offices for the next installment of this year’s Best North Korean Story. Have you missed an episode? They are available for playback in the languages lab of the Grand People’s Study House. When