The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [58]
“That will do it,” she said, then hesitated. “Sorry, that sounded bad, the way I said that.”
What was there to say? Jun Do shrugged at her.
She said, “You said my husband’s purpose was to save the girl who rowed in your dreams.”
“I just told him that to keep him strong and focused,” Jun Do said. “The mission is always to stay alive.”
“My husband isn’t alive, is he? You’d tell me, right?”
“Yes, I’d tell you,” Jun Do said. “But no, he’s not alive.”
She looked in his eyes.
“My lullaby, could everybody hear that broadcast?”
“Anyone on the East Sea.”
“What about Pyongyang, could they hear it there?”
“No,” he said. “That’s too far, there’s mountains. The signal travels farther over water.”
“But anyone who was listening,” she said.
“Ships, navigation stations, naval craft, they all heard. And I’m sure he heard you, too.”
“In this dream of yours?”
“In my dream, yes,” Jun Do said. “The dream of him floating away, the bright lights, his radio. It’s as real as the sharks rising out of the dark water, as the teeth in my arm. I know one is real and one’s a dream, but I keep forgetting which is which, they’re both so true. I can’t tell anymore. I don’t know which one.”
“Choose the beautiful story, with the bright lights, the one where he can hear us,” she told him. “That’s the true one. Not the scary story, not the sharks.”
“But isn’t it more scary to be utterly alone upon the waters, completely cut off from everyone, no friends, no family, no direction, nothing but a radio for solace?”
She touched the side of his face. “That’s your story,” she said. “You’re trying to tell me your story, aren’t you?”
Jun Do stared at her.
“Oh, you poor boy,” she said. “You poor little boy. It doesn’t have to be that way. Come in off the water, things can be different. You don’t need a radio, I’m right here. You don’t have to choose the alone.”
She leaned in close and kissed him tenderly on the forehead and once on each cheek. She sat up and regarded him. She stroked his hand. When she leaned in again, moving as if to kiss him, she paused, staring at his chest.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s stupid,” she said. She covered her mouth.
“No it isn’t. Tell me.”
“I’m just used to looking down at my husband and seeing my face over his heart. I’ve never known anything different.”
When the shock-work whistles blew in the morning, and the housing block was a hive of loudspeakers, they went onto the roof to remove the antenna. The morning sun was flat and brilliant upon the waters, yet lacking the heat to revive the flies or the stink of dog waste. The dogs, which seemed to snap and herd one another all day, were cowered in a single, sleeping mass in the crisp morning air, their coats white with dew.
The Second Mate’s wife walked to the edge of the roof and sat with her legs swinging over the edge. Jun Do joined her, but the sight of the courtyard ten stories below made him close his eyes a moment.
“I won’t be able to use mourning as an excuse much longer,” she said. “At work, they’ll hold a criticism session about me and reinstate my quota.”
Below, a steady procession of workers in their jumpsuits crossed the courtyard, traversing the fish-cart paths and passing the Canning Master’s house for the gates of the fish-processing factory.
“They never look up,” she said. “I sit out here all the time and watch them. Not one has ever looked up and caught me.”
Jun Do found the courage to gaze down upon them, and it was nothing like looking into the depths of the ocean. A hundred feet of air or sea alike would kill you, but the water would shuttle you, slowly, to a new realm.
Toward the sea, the sun was now hard to look at, so many flashes off the water. If it reminded her of Jun Do’s dream about her husband, she didn’t show it. The Junma could now be discerned from the other helms in the harbor, its peculiar bow-to-stern pitch from even the slightest wake of a passing vessel. Its nets were back aboard and it would be upon the water again soon. By shielding his eyes and squinting, Jun Do could make out a figure at the rail,