The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [76]
Toward twilight, Jun Do dressed in his white guayabera shirt, with its stiff collar and fancy stitching. Through the window, he could see Dr. Song and the Minister exit a shiny black mobile home where they had been holding talks with the Senator all afternoon. The dog stood and came to the edge of the bed. There was a harness around its neck. It was kind of a sad thing, a dog without a warren. A band started playing somewhere, perhaps Spanish voices. When Jun Do turned to go out into the night, the dog followed.
The hallway was lined with photographs of the Senator’s family, always smiling. To move toward the kitchen was like going back in time, the graduation photos becoming sports photos, and then there were scouting clubs, pigtails, birthday parties, and finally the pictures were of babies. Was this what a family was, how it grew—straight as the children’s teeth? Sure, there was an arm in a sling and over time the grandparents disappeared from the photos. The occasions changed, as did the dogs. But this was a family, start to finish, without wars or famines or political prisons, without a stranger coming to town to drown your daughter.
Outside, the air was dry and cool and smelled of cactus ribs and aluminum stock tanks. The stars wavered as Texas gave off the last of its heat. Jun Do followed the sounds of Mexican singers and a whirring blender to the corral, where the men wore white shirts and the women were wrapped in colorful shawls. There was a tripod of fire, illuminating the sheen of people’s faces. It was a thrilling idea—setting wood ablaze just so people could mingle and enjoy one another’s company in the dark. By the flickering light, the Senator played his fiddle and sang a song called “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”
Wanda walked by holding so many limes she had to press them against her chest. When Jun Do stopped, the dog stopped, its coat in the firelight orange and black. “Okay, dog,” Jun Do said, and stiffly patted its head like an American would.
Wanda juiced limes with a wooden baton as Pilar upturned bottles of liquor into the blender. Wanda jazzed its button in time with the music, then Pilar filled a line of yellow plastic cups with great flair. Wanda brought him a drink when she saw him.
He stared at the salt on the rim. “What’s this?” he asked.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Be a sport. You know what Saddam had in the deepest room of his bunker? I’m talking below the hardened war rooms and command centers. He had an Xbox video game, with only one controller.”
He gave her a look of incomprehension.
“Everybody needs to have fun,” she said.
Jun Do drank from the cup—tart and dry, it tasted like thirst itself.
“I looked into your friend,” Wanda said. “The Japanese and South Koreans don’t have anybody who fits the bill. If he crossed the Yalu into China, then who knows. And maybe he’s not going by his real name. Give it time, he might turn up. Sometimes they make their way to Thailand.”
Jun Do unfolded his piece of paper and handed it to Wanda. “Can you pass along this message for me?”
“ ‘Alive and Well in North Korea,’ ” she read. “What is this?”
“It’s a list of Japanese kidnap victims.”
“Those kidnappings all made the news,” Wanda said. “Anyone could have made this list. It doesn’t prove anything.”
“Prove?” Jun Do asked. “I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m trying to tell you what no one else can—that none of these people were lost, that they all survived their kidnappings and that they are alive and well. Not knowing, that’s the worst. That list isn’t for you—it’s a message from me to those families, for their peace of mind. It’s all I have to give them.”
“They’re all alive and well,” she said. “Except for the one with the star?”
Jun Do made himself speak her name. “Mayumi,