The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [162]
Buc nodded at the box. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said.
When Commander Ga looked at the box, he had a sudden feeling that inside was an object that had once belonged to the real Commander Ga. He didn’t have a sense of whether it was a jacket or a hat or why Buc would be in possession of such a thing, he only felt that what was inside had belonged to his predecessor and that when he opened the box and came in contact with the thing, when he touched it and accepted it, the real Commander Ga would hold a power over him.
“You open it,” he said to Buc.
Comrade Buc reached into the box and removed a pair of black cowboy boots.
Ga took them, turned them in his hands—they were the same pair he’d held in Texas.
“How’d you find these?” he asked.
Buc didn’t answer, but gave a grin of pride that he could find any item on earth, anywhere, and fetch it to Pyongyang.
Ga removed his dress shoes, which, he now realized, actually had belonged to his predecessor. They’d been at least a size too large. When he sank his feet into the cowboy boots, they fit perfectly. Buc took one of Commander Ga’s dress shoes and studied it.
“He was always such an ass about his shoes,” Buc said. “He made me procure them for him in Japan. They had to be from Japan.”
“What should we do with them?”
“They’re fine shoes,” Buc said. “They’d be worth a small fortune at a night market.”
But then Buc tossed them into the mud.
Together, the two men began walking the site, making sure everything was in order for the Dear Leader’s inspection. The Japanese chuck wagon looked convincing enough, and there was no end of fishing poles and scythes. Near the shooting stand was a bamboo cage that contained the dark motion of poisonous snakes.
“Does it feel like Texas to you?” Comrade Buc asked.
Commander Ga shrugged. “The Dear Leader’s never been to Texas,” he said. “He’ll think it looks like Texas, that’s all that matters.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Buc said.
Ga looked up to see if it would rain. This morning the rainfall had been heavy, obscuring everything out the windows, so the light was faint when Sun Moon shifted to his side of the bed. “I have to know if he’s really gone,” she said. “So many times my husband disappeared, only to reappear days or weeks later, in ways that would surprise you, test you. If he came back now, if he saw what we were planning … you don’t even know.” Here she paused. “When he really hurts people,” she added, “he doesn’t take snapshots.”
Her hand was on his chest. He reached for her shoulder, the skin warm from the covers. “Trust me,” he told her. “You’ll never see him again.” He ran his hand down her side, feeling the soft skin travel under his fingers.
“No,” she said and pulled back. “Just tell me he’s dead. Ever since we decided on our plan, now that we’re risking everything, I can’t shake this feeling that he’s coming back.”
“He’s dead, I promise,” he told her. But it wasn’t so simple. It wasn’t so simple because it had been dark and chaotic in the mine. He’d sunk a rear scissors choke on Commander Ga and held it for the full count and then some. When Mongnan came and found him, she told him to put on Ga’s uniform. He got dressed and listened when she told him what to say to the Warden. But when she told him to crush the naked man’s skull with a rock he shook his head no. Instead, he rolled the body into a shaft. It turned out to be a shallow one. They heard the body tumble briefly before sliding to a rest, and with the seed of doubt Sun Moon had placed in his chest, he, too, now had the feeling that he’d only almost killed the real Commander Ga, that the man was out there somewhere, recovering, regaining his strength, that when he was himself again, he’d be coming.
Ga walked to the corral. “This is the only Texas we’ve got,” he said to Buc, then climbed the poles to sit on the top