Adam Johnson - The Orphan Masters Son

This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters with the exception of some well-known real-life figures, are products of the authors imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life figures appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2012 by Adam Johnson

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Johnson, Adam.
The orphan masters son : a novel / Adam Johnson.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-64399-9
1. Korea (North)Fiction. I. Title.
PS3610.O3O76 2011
813.6dc22 2011013410

www.atrandom.com

Jacket design: Lynn Buckley

v3.1_r1

CITIZENS, gather round your loudspeakers, for we bring important updates! In your kitchens, in your offices, on your factory floorswherever your loudspeaker is located, turn up the volume!

In local news, our Dear Leader Kim Jong Il was seen offering on-the-spot guidance to the engineers deepening the Taedong River channel. While the Dear Leader lectured to the dredge operators, many doves were seen to spontaneously flock above him, hovering to provide our Reverend General some much needed shade on a hot day. Also to report is a request from Pyongyangs Minister of Public Safety, who asks that while pigeon-snaring season is in full swing, trip wires and snatch loops be placed out of the reach of our youngest comrades. And dont forget, citizens: the ban on stargazing is still in effect.

Later in the broadcast, well reveal the winning recipe for this months cooking contest. Hundreds of recipes were entered, but only one can be declared the best way to preparePumpkin Rind Soup! But first comes grave news from the East Sea, where American aggressors flirt with acts of all-out war after stopping and looting a North Korean fishing vessel. Once again, the Yankees have violated Korean waters to steal the precious contents of a sovereign ship, all the while accusing us of everything from banditry to kidnapping to cruelty to sharks. First off, it is the Americans and their puppets who are the pirates of the sea. Secondly, did an American woman not recently row around the entire world to defect to our great nation, a workers paradise where citizens want for nothing? That alone should be proof enough that these persistent accusations of kidnapping are ludicrous.

But cruelty to sharks? This charge must be addressed. Known as the fishermans friend, the shark has an ancient camaraderie with the Korean people. In the year 1592, did sharks not offer fish from their own mouths to help sustain Admiral Yis sailors during the siege of Okpo Harbor? Have sharks not developed cancer-preventing powers in order to help their human friends live longer and healthier? Does our own Commander Ga, winner of the Golden Belt, not have a soothing bowl of shark-fin soup before each triumphant taekwondo match? And citizens, did you not see with your own eyes a movie entitled A True Daughter of the Country, right here in Pyongyangs own Moranbong Theater? Then certainly you remember the scene in which our national actress Sun Moon capsized in Inchon Bay while trying to prevent the American sneak attack. It was a scary moment for all of us as the sharks began to circle her, helpless amid the waves. But did the sharks not recognize Sun Moons Korean modesty? Did they not smell the hot blood of her patriotism and lift her upon their fins to carry her safely to shore, where she could join the raging battle to repel the imperialist invaders?

By these deeds alone, citizens, you must know that the rumors swirling around Pyongyangthat Commander Ga and Sun Moon are anything less than utterly in loveare baseless lies! Baseless as the boarding of our innocent fishing vessels by foreign powers, baseless as the outlandish allegations of kidnapping leveled at us by the Japanese. Do the Japanese think we forget it is they who once enslaved our husbands and made comfort women of our wives? Baseless to think that any woman loves her husband more than Sun Moon. Did the citizens not behold how Sun Moon bestowed the Golden Belt upon her new husband, her cheeks flushed with modesty and love? Were you not assembled in Kim Il Sung Square to witness it firsthand?

What are you going to believe, citizens? Rumors and lies, or your very own eyes?

But let us return to the rest of todays programming, which includes a rebroadcast of Kim Il Sungs glorious speech of April Fifteenth, Juche 71, and a public-service announcement from the Minister of Procurement Comrade Buc on the topic of prolonging the life of compact fluorescent lightbulbs. But first, citizens, a treat: it is our pleasure to announce that Pyongyang has a new opera singer. The Dear Leader has dubbed her the Lovely Visitor. And here she is, to sing for your patriotic pleasure the arias from Sea of Blood. So return to your industrial lathes and vinalon looms, citizens, and double your output quotas as you listen to this Lovely Visitor sing the story of the greatest nation in the world, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea!

JUN DOS mother was a singer. That was all Jun Dos father, the Orphan Master, would say about her. The Orphan Master kept a photograph of a woman in his small room at Long Tomorrows. She was quite lovelyeyes large and sideways looking, lips pursed with an unspoken word. Since beautiful women in the provinces get shipped to Pyongyang, thats certainly what had happened to his mother. The real proof of this was the Orphan Master himself. At night, hed drink, and from the barracks, the orphans would hear him weeping and lamenting, striking half-heard bargains with the woman in the photograph. Only Jun Do was allowed to comfort him, to finally take the bottle from his hands.

As the oldest boy at Long Tomorrows, Jun Do had responsibilitiesportioning the food, assigning bunks, renaming the new boys from the list of the 114 Grand Martyrs of the Revolution. Even so, the Orphan Master was serious about showing no favoritism to his son, the only boy at Long Tomorrows who wasnt an orphan. When the rabbit warren was dirty, it was Jun Do who spent the night locked in it. When boys wet their bunks, it was Jun Do who chipped the frozen piss off the floor. Jun Do didnt brag to the other boys that he was the son of the Orphan Master, rather than some kid dropped off by parents on their way to a 9-27 camp. If someone wanted to figure it out, it was pretty obviousJun Do had been there before all of them, and the reason hed never been adopted was because his father would never let someone take his only son. And it made sense that after his mother was stolen to Pyongyang, his father had applied for the one position that would allow him to both earn a living and watch over his son.