The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [66]
The Senator directed the Minister toward an old American car. When the Minister moved to open the driver’s-side door, the Senator gently directed him to the other side.
Tommy indicated a white convertible whose chrome lettering proclaimed “Mustang.”
“I must travel with them,” Dr. Song said.
“They’re in a Thunderbird,” Wanda said. “It only seats two.”
“But they don’t speak the same language,” Dr. Song said.
Tommy said, “Half a Texas don’t speak the same language.”
The Mustang, top down, followed the Thunderbird out onto a county road. Jun Do rode in the backseat with Dr. Song. Tommy drove.
Wanda lifted her head into the wind, moving her face back and forth, enjoying it. Far ahead and far behind, Jun Do could make out the black of security vehicles. The side of the road glimmered with broken glass. Why would a country be strewn with razor-sharp glass? To Jun Do, it seemed like some tragedy had taken place every step of the way. And where were all the people? A barbed-wire fence paced them, making it feel as if they were in a normal control-permit zone. But rather than concrete poles with insulators for the electricity, the posts were made from gnarled, bleached branches that looked like broken limbs or old bones, as if something had died to build every five meters of that fence.
“This is quite a special car,” Dr. Song said.
“It’s the Senator’s,” Tommy said. “We’ve been friends since our Army days.” Tommy’s arm was hanging outside the car in the wind. He slapped the metal twice. “I had known war in Vietnam,” he said. “And I had known Jesus, but it wasn’t till I borrowed this Mustang, with rolled-and-tucked backseats, that I knew Mary McParsons and took my first breath as a man.”
Wanda laughed.
Dr. Song shifted uncomfortably on the leather.
Jun Do could see on the face of Dr. Song the great insult that had been done him to be informed he was sitting where Tommy had once had intercourse.
“Oh,” Tommy went on, “I cringe when I think of the guy I used to be. Thank God I ain’t still him. I married that woman, by the way. I did that right, rest her soul.”
Dr. Song observed a political sign bearing the image of the Senator and an American flag. “There is an election coming, no?” he asked.
“That’s right,” Tommy said. “The Senator’s got a primary in August.”
“We are lucky, Jun Do,” Dr. Song said, “to witness American democracy in action.”
Jun Do tried to think of how Comrade Buc would respond. “Most exciting,” Jun Do said.
Dr. Song asked, “Will the Senator retain his representative position?”
“It’s pretty much a sure thing,” Tommy said.
“A sure thing?” Dr. Song asked. “That doesn’t sound very democratic.”
Jun Do said, “That’s not how we were taught democracy works.”
“Tell me,” Dr. Song said to Tommy. “What will be the voter turnout?”
Tommy looked at them in the rearview mirror. “Of registered voters? For a primary, that would be about forty percent.”
“Forty percent?” Dr. Song exclaimed. “Voter turnout in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is ninety-nine percent—the most democratic nation in the world! Still, the United States needn’t feel shame. Your country can still be a beacon for countries with lower turnouts, like Burundi, Paraguay, and Chechnya.”
“Ninety-nine-percent turnout?” Tommy marveled. “With democracy like that, I’m sure you’ll soon be over a hundred.”
Wanda laughed, but then she looked back, caught Jun Do’s eye, and offered him a smile that was sly-eyed, seeming to include him in the humor.
Tommy looked at them in the rearview mirror. “You don’t actually believe that ‘most democratic nation’ business, do you? You know the truth about where you’re from, right?”
Wanda said, “Don’t ask them questions like that. The wrong answer could get them in trouble back home.”
Tommy said, “Tell me you at least know the South won the war. Please know that much.”
“But you’re wrong, my dear Thomas,” Dr. Song said. “I believe it was the Confederacy that lost the war. It was the North that prevailed.”
Wanda smiled at Tommy. “He got you on that one,” she said.
Tommy laughed.