The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [147]
“There,” he said. Ga held the bird out for them again. It was beautiful, the meat pearlescent and pink, fanned over the finest white bones, the tiny tips of which leaked red.
With a thumbnail he scraped along the sternum and removed a perfect almond of translucent breast meat. This he placed in his mouth and savored, remembering.
He offered the other breast, but the children, stunned, shook their heads. This, too, Ga ate, then tossed the carcass to the dog, who crunched it right down.
CONGRATULATE one another, citizens, for high praises are in order on the occasion of the publication of the Dear Leader’s latest artistic treatise, On the Art of Opera. This is a sequel to Kim Jong Il’s earlier book On the Art of the Cinema, which is required reading for serious actors worldwide. To mark the occasion, the Minister of Collective Child Rearing announced the composition of two new children’s songs—“Hide Deeply” and “Duck the Rope.” All week, expired ration cards may be used to gain admittance to matinee opera performances!
Now, an important word from our Minister of Defense: Certainly the loudspeaker in each and every apartment in North Korea provides news, announcements, and cultural programming, but it must be reminded that it was by Great Leader Kim Il Sung’s decree in 1973 that an air-raid warning system be installed across this nation, and a properly functioning early-warning network is of supreme importance. The Inuit people are a tribe of isolated savages that live near the North Pole. Their boots are called mukluk. Ask your neighbor later today, what is a mukluk? If he does not know, perhaps there is a malfunction with his loudspeaker, or perhaps it has for some reason become accidentally disconnected. By reporting this, you could be saving his life the next time the Americans sneak-attack our great nation.
Citizens, when last we saw the beauty Sun Moon, she had closed herself off. Our poor actress was handling her loss badly. Why won’t she turn to the inspirational tracts of the Dear Leader? Kim Jong Il is someone who understands what you’re going through. Losing his brother when he was seven, his mother after that, and then a baby sister a year later, not to mention a couple of stepmothers—yes, the Dear Leader is someone who speaks the language of loss.
Still, Sun Moon did understand the role of reverence in a good citizen’s life, so she packed a picnic lunch to take to the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery, just a short walk from her house on Mount Taesong. Once there, her family spread a cloth on the ground, where they could relax at their meal, knowing Taepodong-II missiles stood at the ready, while high above, North Korea’s BrightStar satellite defended them from space.
The meal, of course, was bulgogi, and Sun Moon had prepared all manner of banchan to accompany the feast, including some gui, jjim, jeon, and namul. They thanked the Dear Leader for their bounty and dug in!
As he ate, Commander Ga asked about her parents. “Do they live here in the capital?”
“It’s just my mother,” Sun Moon said. “She retired to Wonsan, but I never hear from her.”
Commander Ga nodded. “Yes,” he said, “Wonsan.”
He stared off into the cemetery, no doubt thinking of all the golf and karaoke to be found in that glorious retirement community.
“You’ve been there?” she asked.
“No, but I’ve seen it from the sea.”
“Is it beautiful, Wonsan?”
The children were fast at their chopsticks. Birds eyed them from the trees.
“Well,” he said, “I can say the sand is especially white. And the waves are quite blue.”
She nodded. “I’m sure,” she said. “But why, why doesn’t she write?”
“Have you written her?”
“She never sent me her