The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [154]
At the sound of his laugh, Sun Moon stopped reading and turned. Seeing him standing there, she threw the script off the balcony and went inside.
Ga and Buc watched the cloud of paper flutter through the trees.
Comrade Buc shook his head in disbelief. “You really upset her,” he said. “You know how long she’s been waiting for this movie?”
“She’ll be rid of me soon enough, and her life will return to normal,” Ga said, and despite himself, there was a sadness to his voice.
“Are you joking?” Buc asked. “The Dear Leader has declared you the real Commander Ga. There’s no way he can get rid of you now. And why would he want to? His nemesis is gone.”
Ga drank from his beer.
“I found his computer,” he said.
“Are you serious?” Buc asked.
“Yeah. It was hidden behind a painting of Kim Il Sung.”
“Is there anything on there you can use?”
“It’s mostly loaded with maps,” Ga said. “There’s a lot of technical data, flowcharts, blueprints, things I can’t make sense of.”
“Those maps are the uranium mines,” Buc said. “Your predecessor was in charge of every excavation site. Plus, he oversaw the entire processing network—ore to refinement. I procured everything for him. You ever try to buy aluminum centrifuge tubes over the internet?”
“I thought being the Minister of Prison Mines was supposed to be a symbolic post, nothing more than signing the paperwork to keep the convict labor coming.”
“That was before the uranium was discovered,” Buc said. “You think the Dear Leader would hand Ga the keys to the nuclear program? If you want, I’ll explain it all. We can go through the laptop together.”
“You don’t want to see it,” Ga said. “There are also pictures.”
“Of me?”
Ga nodded. “And a thousand other men.”
“He didn’t do to me what those photos make it look like.”
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
“No, this is something you should hear,” Buc said. “He was going to man-attack me, he said. But once he beat me down, once he had me where he could do anything he wanted, he lost interest. All he wanted then was an image to remember me by. I can’t imagine how good it must have felt, to take the life from that man. He tried to do it to you, right?”
Ga didn’t say anything.
Buc said, “You can tell me, can’t you? How you finished him off? Seeing as you’re in the mood to tell the truth.”
“It’s not a big story,” Ga said. “I was in the bottom level of the mine. The ceilings were low, and there was only one droplight in each chamber. Water rained through cracks in the ceiling, and it was hot, everything was steam. There were several men down there, and we were looking at a vein of white rock. That was the goal, getting the white rock out. Then Commander Ga appeared in the room. Suddenly he was there, dripping with sweat.
“You’ve got to know the men under you, Ga said to me. You’ve got to know their hearts. Victory from without comes from victory within.
“I pretended I didn’t hear him.
“Grab a man, Commander Ga told me. That one there, let’s know the heart of that one.
“I beckoned one of the men over.
“Grab him! Commander Ga shouted. Grab him so he believes it. Take him so there’s no doubt in his mind.
“I approached the man. He saw the look on my face, and I saw the look on his. He turned from me and I took his back, wrapping him with my arms. When I looked back to see if this was sufficient for the Commander, I saw that he was now naked, his uniform a pile on the ground.
“Commander Ga spoke as if nothing was different. You’ve got to do it like you mean it, he’s got to believe there’s no escape. That’s the only way you’ll know if he likes the idea. Commander Ga put his arms around the midsection of another inmate. You’ve got to get ahold of him. He’s got to know you’re stronger, that there’s no way out. Maybe it’s only when you grab him by the backside that he gives in to what he really wants and then his arousal betrays him.
“Commander Ga grabbed the man in a way that made him wince in fear.
“Stop, I told him.
“Commander Ga turned to me, amazement on his face. That’s right. That’s what you say to him. Stop.