The Orphan Master's Son Read Free Page A

do little tricks. Say to the dog, Nice doggie, sit.
Yoshi yoshi. Osuwari kawaii desu ne.
”
    Jun Do said, “Will you shut up with the Japanese?”
    Jun Do wanted to ask if there was a plan, but Officer So simply turned them toward the shore. Back in Panmunjom, Jun Do was the leader of his tunnel squad, so he had a liquor ration and a weekly credit for one of the women. In three days, he had the quarterfinals of the KPA taekwondo tournament.
    Jun Do’s squad swept every tunnel under the DMZ once a month, and they worked without lights, which meant jogging for kilometers in complete darkness, using their red lights only when they reached a tunnel’s end and needed to inspect its seals and trip wires. They worked as if they might encounter the South Koreans at any point, and except for the rainy season, when the tunnels were too muddy to use, they trained daily in zero-light hand to hand. It was said that the ROK soldiers had infrared and American night-vision goggles. The only weapon Jun Do’s boys had was the dark.
    When the waves got rough, and he felt panicky, Jun Do turned to Gil. “So what’s this job that’s worse than disarming land mines?”
    â€œMapping them,” Gil said.
    â€œWhat, with a sweeper?”
    â€œMetal detectors don’t work,” Gil said. “The Americans use plastic mines now. We made maps of where they probably were, using psychology and terrain. When a path forces a step or tree roots direct your feet, that’s where we assume a mine and mark it down. We’d spend all night in a minefield, risking our lives with every step, and for what? Come morning, the mines were still there, the enemy was still there.”
    Jun Do knew who got the worst jobs—tunnel recon, twelve-man submarines, mines, biochem—and he suddenly saw Gil differently. “So you’re an orphan,” he said.
    Gil looked shocked. “Not at all. Are you?”
    â€œNo,” Jun Do said. “Not me.”
    Jun Do’s own unit was made up of orphans, though in Jun Do’s case it was a mistake. The address on his KPA card had been Long Tomorrows, and that’s what had condemned him. It was a glitch no one in North Korea seemed capable of fixing, and now, this was his fate. He’d spent his life with orphans, he understood their special plight, so he didn’t hate them like most people did. He just wasn’t one of them.
    â€œAnd you’re a translator now?” Jun Do asked him.
    â€œYou work the minefields long enough,” Gil said, “and they reward you. They send you someplace cushy like language school.”
    Officer So laughed a bitter little laugh.
    The white foam of the breakers was sweeping into the boat now.
    â€œThe shitty thing is,” Gil said, “when I’m walking down the street, I’ll think,
That’s where I’d put a land mine
. Or I’ll find myself not stepping on certain places, like door thresholds or in front of a urinal. I can’t even go to a park anymore.”
    â€œA park?” Jun Do asked. He’d never seen a park.
    â€œEnough,” Officer So said. “It’s time to get that language school a new Japanese teacher.” He throttled back and the surf grew loud, the skiff turning sideways in the waves.
    They could see the outline of a man on the beach watching them, but they were helpless now, just twenty meters from shore. When Jun Do felt the boat start to go over, he leaped out to steady it, and though it was only waist deep, he went down hard in the waves. The tide rolled him along the sandy bottom before he came up coughing.
    The man on the beach didn’t say anything. It was almost dark as Jun Do waded ashore.
    Jun Do took a deep breath, then wiped the water from his hair.
    â€œKonban wa,”
he said to the stranger.
“Odenki kesu da.”
    â€œOgenki desu ka,”
Gil called from the boat.
    â€œDesu ka,”
Jun Do repeated.
    The dog