The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [198]
When at last her car arrived, he was lying flat in the bed, letting the breathing of the children—unconscious, elemental—soothe him. He listened to her enter in the dark and in the kitchen ladle herself a glass of water. When she opened the door to the bedroom, he felt for the box of matches and drew one.
“Don’t,” she said.
He feared that she had somehow been damaged or marked, that she was trying to hide something that had been inflicted upon her.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
He listened to her change into her bedclothes. Despite the darkness, he could visualize her, the way she removed garments and draped them across a chair back, how she balanced herself, hand against the wall, to step into the shift she would wear to sleep. He could sense her in the dark, touching the children’s faces, making sure they were safe and dreaming deep.
When she was under the covers, he lit the candle, and there she was, illuminated in golden light.
“Where did he take you?” he asked. “What did he do to you?”
He studied her face, looking for a sign of what she might have gone through.
“He didn’t hurt me,” she said. “He simply gave me a glimpse of the future.”
Ga saw the three choson-ots hanging red, white, and blue against the wall.
“Is that part of it?” he asked.
“Those are the costumes I’m to wear tomorrow. Won’t I look like one of those patriotic tour guides in the War Museum?”
“You’re not to wear your own dress, the silver one?”
She shook her head.
“So you’ll leave here looking like the showgirl he wants you to be,” he said. “I know that’s not how you wanted to go, but the important thing is that you get out. You’re not having second thoughts, are you? You’re still going, right?”
“We’re still going, right?” she said. Then something caught her eye. She looked up to the empty mantel. “Where are the peaches?”
He paused. “I threw the can off the balcony,” he told her. “We won’t need them anymore.”
She stared at him.
“What if someone finds them and eats them?” she asked.
“I cut open the lid first,” he said, “so they’d all spill out.”
Sun Moon cocked her head. “Are you lying to me?”
“Of course not.”
“Can I still trust you?”
“I threw them away because we’re not taking that path,” he said. “We’re choosing a different one, one that leads to a life like the one in the American movie.”
She rolled to her back and stared at the ceiling.
“What about you?” he asked. “Why won’t you tell me what he did to you?”
She pulled the sheet higher and kept ahold of the fabric.
“Did he put his hands on you?”
“There are things that happen in this world,” she said. “And what is there to say about them?”
Ga waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t.
After a while, she exhaled.
“The time has come for me to be intimate with you,” she said. “There are many things that the Dear Leader knows about me. When we’re safe on a plane, I’ll tell you my story, if that’s what you want. Tonight I’m going to tell you the things he doesn’t know.”
She craned her neck toward the candle and blew it out.
“The Dear Leader doesn’t have a clue about how my husband and Commander Park plotted against him. The Dear Leader doesn’t know that I hate his constant karaoke, that I’ve never sung a song for pleasure in my life. He has no idea that his wife used to send me notes—she put his seal on them to get me to open them, but I never did. He could never know how I turn my hearing off when he starts to confide his vile secrets