The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [73]
He wasn’t as muscular as when he’d been in the military, but his physique was strong, and he could feel the women looking at him.
“No,” he said. “It’s just these stitches. They itch like crazy.”
“We’ll get those out in no time,” she said. “Can I ask what happened?”
“It’s a story I’d rather not tell,” he said. “But it was a shark that did it.”
“Madre de Dios,” Pilar said.
Wanda was standing next to the Senator’s wife. She held open a white first-aid kit the size of a briefcase. “You mean the kind with the fins, that live in the ocean?” Wanda asked.
“I lost a lot of blood,” he said.
They just stared at him.
“My friend wasn’t so lucky,” he added.
“I understand,” the Senator’s wife said. “Take a deep breath.”
Jun Do inhaled.
“Really deep,” she said. “Lift your shoulders.”
He took a breath, deep as he could. It came with a wince.
The Senator’s wife nodded. “Your eleventh rib,” she said. “Still healing. Seriously, you want a full checkup, now’s your chance.”
Did she sniff his breath? Jun Do had the feeling there were things she was noting but no longer pointing out. “No, ma’am,” he told her.
Wanda found a pair of tweezers and some finger scissors with pointed, baby blades. He had nine lacerations total, each one laced shut, and the Senator’s wife started with the longest one, along the peak of his biceps.
Pilar pointed at his chest. “Who’s she?”
Jun Do looked down. He didn’t know what to say. “That’s my wife,” he said.
“Very beautiful,” Pilar said.
“She is beautiful,” Wanda said. “It’s a beautiful tattoo, too. Do you mind if I take a pic?”
Jun Do had only had his photograph taken that one time, by the old Japanese woman with the wooden camera, and he never saw the picture that came of it. But it haunted him, what she must have seen. Still, he didn’t know how to say no.
“Great,” Wanda said, and with a small camera, she snapped a picture of his chest, then his injured arm, and finally she lifted the camera to his face and there was a flash in his eyes.
Pilar asked, “Is she a translator, too?”
“My wife’s an actress,” he said.
“What’s her name?” Wanda asked.
“Her name?” Jun Do asked. “Her name is Sun Moon.”
The name was beautiful, he noticed, and it felt good in his mouth and to say aloud, the name of his wife, to these three women. Sun Moon.
“What is this stuff?” the Senator’s wife asked. She held up a strand of suturing she’d removed. It was variously clear, yellow, and rust-colored.
“It’s fishing line,” he said.
“I guess if you’d caught tetanus, we’d already know by now,” she said. “In med school, they taught us never to use monofilament, but I can’t for the life of me remember why.”
“What are you going to bring her?” Wanda asked. “As a souvenir of your trip to Texas?”
Jun Do shook his head. “What do you suggest?”
Distractedly, the Senator’s wife asked, “What’s she like?”
“She likes traditional dresses. Her yellow one is my favorite. She wears her hair back to show off her gold earrings. She likes to sing karaoke. She likes movies.”
“No,” Wanda said. “What’s she like, her personality?”
Jun Do took a moment. “She needs lots of attention,” he said, then paused, unsure how to proceed. “She is not free with her love. Her father was afraid that men would take advantage of her beauty, that they would be drawn to her for the wrong reasons, so when she was sixteen, he got her a job in a fish factory, where no men from Pyongyang would find her. That experience shaped her, made her strive for what she wanted. Still, she found a husband who is domineering. They say he can be a real asshole. And she is trapped by the state. She cannot choose her own movie roles. Except for karaoke, she can only sing the songs they tell her to sing.