The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [32]
“I’m not in intelligence,” Jun Do said. “I’m just a guy they sent to language school.”
But the Captain wasn’t listening. “What the Second Mate did was stupid, but he took action, he was defending us, not putting us in jeopardy. But you, you froze, and now it may be over for us.”
The First Mate tried to say something, but the Captain glared at him. “You could have said you were a reporter, doing a story on humble fishermen. You could have said you were from Kim Il Sung University, that you were studying shrimp. That officer wasn’t trying to be your friend. He doesn’t care about you at all.” The Captain pointed toward the shore. “And they’re even worse,” he said. “People don’t mean anything to them, anything at all.”
Jun Do stared, without affect, into the Captain’s eyes.
“Do you understand?”
Jun Do nodded.
“Then say it.”
“People don’t mean anything to them,” Jun Do said.
“That’s right,” the Captain said. “They only care about the story we’re going to tell, and that story will be useful to them or it won’t. When they ask you what happened to our flag and portraits, what story are you going to tell them?”
“I don’t know,” Jun Do told him.
The Captain turned to the Machinist.
The Machinist said, “There was another fire, this time in the helm, and the portraits, unfortunately, burned. We could light the fire, and when it looked burned enough, put it out with the extinguisher. We’d want the ship to still be smoking when we entered the harbor.”
“Good, good,” the Captain said. He asked the Machinist what his role would be.
“I burned my hands trying to save their portraits.”
“And how did the fire start?” the Captain asked.
“Cheap Chinese fuel,” the Second Mate said.
“Good,” the Captain said.
“Tainted South Korean fuel,” the First Mate said.
“Even better,” the Captain said.
The Pilot said, “And I burned my hair off trying to save the flag.”
“And you, Third Mate,” the Captain asked. “What was your role in the fire?”
Jun Do thought about it. “Um,” he said. “I poured buckets of water?”
The Captain looked at him with disgust. He picked up a shoe and regarded its colors—green and yellow, with the diamond of the nation of Brazil. “There’s no way we’ll be able to explain these,” he said and threw it overboard. He picked up another, white with a silver swoosh. This, too, he tossed overboard. “Some humble fishermen were out in the bountiful North Korean waters, adding with their efforts to the riches of the most democratic nation in the world. Though they were tired, and though they’d far exceeded their revolutionary quotas, they knew the birthday of the Great Leader Kim Il Sung was nearing, and that dignitaries from all over the world would be visiting to pay their respects.”
The First Mate retrieved the pair of shoes he’d saved. With a deep, painful breath, he threw them into the sea. He said, “What could they do, these humble fishermen, to show their respect for the great leader? They decided to harvest some delicious North Korean shrimp, the envy of the world.”
The Pilot kicked a shoe into the sea. “In praise of the Great Leader, the shrimp leaped willingly from the ocean into the fishermen’s nets.”
The Machinist began pushing whole stacks of shoes overboard. “Hiding in the fog like cowards were the Americans,” he said, “in a giant ship bought with the blood money of capitalism.”
The Second Mate closed his eyes for a moment. He removed his shoes, and now he had none. The look in his eyes said that the wrongest thing that had ever happened was happening right now. And then the shoes slipped from his hand and into the water. He pretended to look at the horizon so that no one would see his face.
The Captain turned to Jun Do. “In this story of naked imperial aggression, what role did you play, citizen?”
“I was witness to it all,” Jun Do said. “The young Second Mate is too humble to speak of his own bravery, but I saw it, I saw all of it—how the Americans boarded in a surprise attack, how an ROK officer led the Americans around