The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [24]
A couple of nights later, the Junma’s holds were full, and she was headed west for home. Jun Do was smoking with the Captain and the Pilot when they saw the red light flash on and off in the pilothouse. The wind was from the north, pacing them, so the deck was calm, making it seem like they were standing still. The light flashed on and off again. “You going to get that?” the Pilot asked the Captain.
The Captain pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at it. “What’s the point?”
“What’s the point?” the Pilot asked.
“Yeah, what’s the point? It’s shit for us either way.”
Finally, the Captain stood, straightened his jacket. His time in Russia had cured him of alcohol, yet he walked to the pilothouse as if for the harsh inevitability of a drink, rather than a radio call from the maritime minister in Chongjin. “That guy’s only got so much,” the Pilot said, and when the red light went off, they knew the Captain had answered the call. Not that he had a choice. The Junma was never out of range. The Russians who’d owned the Junma had outfitted it with a radio taken from a submarine—its long antenna was meant to transmit from below the surface, and it had a 20-volt wet-cell battery to power it.
Jun Do watched the Captain silhouetted in the pilothouse and tried to imagine what he might be saying into the radio by the way he pushed his hat back and rubbed his eyes. Jun Do, in his hold, only received. He’d never transmitted in his life. He was secretly building a transmitter on shore, and the closer he got to completion, the more nervous he became over what he’d say into it.
When the Captain returned, he sat at the break in the rail where the winch swung over, his legs hanging free over the side. He took off his hat, a filthy thing he only sometimes wore, and set it aside. Jun Do studied the brass crest with the sickle and hammer embossed over a compass face and a harpoon. They didn’t even make hats like that anymore.
“So,” the Pilot said. “What do they want?”
“Shrimp,” the Captain said. “Live shrimp.”
“In these waters?” the Pilot asked. “This time of year?” He shook his head. “No way, can’t be done.”
Jun Do asked, “Why don’t they just buy some shrimp?”
“I asked them that,” the Captain said. “The shrimp must be North Korean, they said.”
A request like that could only come from the top, perhaps the very top. They’d heard cold-water shrimp were in big demand in Pyongyang. It was a new fashion there to eat them while they were still alive.
“What should we do?” the Pilot asked.
“What to do,” the Captain said. “What to do.”
“Well, there’s nothing to do,” Jun Do said. “We were ordered to get shrimp, so we must get shrimp, right?”
The Captain didn’t say anything, he leaned back on the deck with his feet over the side and closed his eyes. “She was a believer, you know,” the Captain said. “My wife. She thought socialism was the only thing that would make us strong again. There would be a difficult period, she always said, some sacrifices. And then things would be better. I didn’t think I would miss that, you know. I didn’t realize how much I needed someone to keep telling me why.”
“Why?” the Pilot asked. “Because other people depend on you. Everybody here needs you. Imagine if the Second Mate didn’t have you to ask stupid questions to all day.”
The Captain waved him off. “The Russians gave me four years,” he said. “Four years on a fish-gutting ship, forever at sea, never once did we go to port. I got the Russians to let my crew go. They were young, village boys mostly. But next time? I doubt it.”
“We’ll just go out for shrimp,” the Pilot said, “and if we don’t get any, we don’t get any.”
The Captain didn’t say anything to that plan. “The trawlers were always coming,” he said. “They’d be out for weeks and then show up to transfer their catch to our prison ship.