The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [167]
“But we will have the last word,” the Dear Leader said. “A version is being created with every South Korean’s name inside, so that there will be no one beyond our reach. That’s real reunification, don’t you think, being able to place a guiding hand on the shoulder of every Korean, North or South? With good infiltration teams, it will be like the DMZ doesn’t exist. In the spirit of One Korea, I offer you a gift. Type in the name of a person you’d like found, for whom resolution is lacking, and they will be dealt with. Go ahead, any name. Perhaps someone who wronged you during the Arduous March or a rival from the orphanage.”
The parade of people came to Ga, all those whose absences hung like empty dry docks in his memory. Throughout his life, he’d felt the presence of people he’d lost, eternally just out of reach. And here he was, seated before the collected fates of everyone. Yet he did not know his parents’ names, and the only information an orphan’s name gives is that he’s an orphan. Since Sun Moon had come into his life, he’d stopped wondering what had happened to Officer So and the Second Mate and his wife. The Captain’s name is the one he would have typed, but there was no need for that now. And Mongnan and Dr. Song, those were the last names he’d enter, as he wanted them to live forever in his memory. In the end, there was only one person who was haunting him, whose fate and location he had to know about. Commander Ga put his fingers to the keys and typed “Commander Ga Chol Chun.”
When the Dear Leader saw this, he was beside himself. “Oh, that’s rich,” he said. “Oh, that’s a new one. You know what this machine does, right, you know what kind of team waits for these names? It’s good, too good, but I can’t let you do it.” The Dear Leader hit the Delete button and shook his head. “He typed his own name. Wait till I tell everyone at dinner tonight. Wait till they hear the story of how the Commander entered his own name into the master computer.”
The green blinked at Ga like a faraway pulse in the dark.
The Dear Leader clapped him on the shoulder. “Come,” he said. “One last thing. I need you to translate something for me.”
When they reached the Girl Rower’s cell, the Dear Leader paused outside. He leaned against the wall, tapping the key against the cement. “I don’t want to let her go,” he said.
Of course a deal had been struck, the Americans would be here in a few days and breaking a deal like this would never be forgiven. But Ga didn’t mention any of that. He said, “I understand exactly how you feel.”
“She has no idea what I’m talking about when I speak to her,” the Dear Leader said. “But that’s okay. She has a curious mind, I can tell. I’ve been visiting her for a year. I’ve always needed someone like that, someone I can say things to. I like to think she enjoys my visits. Over time I think I have grown on her. How she makes you work for a smile, but when she gives you one, it’s real, you know it.”
The Dear Leader’s eyes were small and searching, as if he was trying not to see the fact that he would have to give her up. It was the way your eyes could scan the sloshing water in the bottom of a skiff because to look anywhere else—at the beach or the duct tape in your hands or Officer So’s stony face—was to acknowledge you were trapped, that very soon you’d be forced to do the thing you abhorred the most.
“I have read that there is a syndrome,” the Dear Leader said. “In this syndrome, a female captive begins to sympathize with her captor. Often it leads to love. Have you heard of this?”
The idea seemed impossible, preposterous, to him. What person could shift allegiance toward their oppressor? Who could possibly sympathize with the villain who stole your life?
Ga shook his head.
“The syndrome is real, I assure you. The only problem is they say it sometimes takes years to work, which it seems we don’t have.” He looked at the wall. “When you said you understood how I felt, did you mean that?”
“I did,” he said.