The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [74]
There was a pause, and Jun Do realized all three women were staring at him.
“You’re not an asshole husband,” Wanda said. “I know the look of one.”
The Senator’s wife stopped tugging sutures, and wholly without guile, appraised his eyes. She looked at the tattoo on Jun Do’s chest. She asked, “Is there a way I could talk to her? I feel that if I could just speak to her, I would be able to help.” On the counter was a phone, one with a loopy cord that connected the handset to the base. “Can you get her on the line?” she asked.
“There are few phones,” Jun Do said.
Pilar opened her cell phone. “I have international minutes,” she said.
Wanda said, “I don’t think North Korea works like that.”
The Senator’s wife nodded and finished removing the stitches in silence. When she was done, she irrigated the wounds again, then stripped off her gloves.
Jun Do pulled on the driver’s shirt he’d been wearing for two days. His arm felt as thick and raw as the day of the bite. As for the tie, he held it in his hand as the Senator’s wife did his buttons—her fingers strong and measured as they coaxed each button through its eye.
“Was the Senator an astronaut?” he asked her.
“He trained as one,” the Senator’s wife said. “But he never got the call.”
“Do you know the satellite?” he asked. “The one that orbits with people from many nations aboard?”
“The Space Station?” Wanda asked.
“Yes,” Jun Do said. “That must be it. Tell me, is it built for peace and brotherhood?”
The ladies looked at each other. “Yes,” the Senator’s wife said. “I suppose it is.”
The Senator’s wife rummaged through kitchen drawers until she found a few doctors’ samples of antibiotics. She slipped two foil packets into his shirt pocket. “For later, if you get sick,” she said. “Take them if you have a fever. Can you tell the difference between a bacterial and a viral infection?”
He nodded.
“No,” Wanda said to the Senator’s wife. “I don’t think he can.”
The Senator’s wife said, “If you have a fever and are bringing up green or brown mucus, then take three of these a day until they’re gone.” She popped the first capsule out of the foil and handed it to him. “We’ll start a cycle now, just in case.”
Wanda poured him a glass of water, but after he’d popped the pill in his mouth and chewed it up, he said, “No thanks, I’m not thirsty.”
“Bless your heart,” the Senator’s wife said.
Pilar opened the cooler. “Ay,” she said and quickly closed it. “What I’m supposed to do with this? Tonight is Tex-Mex.”
“My word,” the Senator’s wife said, shaking her head. “Tiger.”
“I don’t know,” Wanda said. “I kind of want to try it.”
“Did you smell it?” Pilar asked.
“Wanda,” the Senator’s wife said. “We could all go to hell for what’s in that cooler.”
Jun Do jumped off the counter. With one hand, he began tucking in his shirt.
“If my wife were here,” he said, “she’d tell me to throw it out and replace it with flank steak. She’d say you can’t taste the difference, anyway, and now everyone eats, and no one loses face. At dinner, I’d talk about how great it was, how it was the best meat I’d ever had, and that would make her smile.”
Pilar looked to the Senator’s wife. “Tiger tacos?”
The Senator’s wife tried the words in her mouth. “Tiger tacos.”
“Pak Jun Do, what’s called for now is rest,” the Senator’s wife said. “I’m going to show you to your room,” she added with a quiet fierceness, as if she were transgressing somehow by being alone with him. The house had many hallways, lined with more family photos, these framed in wood and metal. The door to the room where he would sleep was slightly open, and when they swung it wide, a dog leaped off the bed. The Senator’s wife didn’t seem concerned. The bed was covered with a quilt, and by pulling it taut, she removed the dog’s impression.
“My grandmother was quite the quilter,” she said, then looked into Jun Do’s