She looked past me into the room. “You don’t seem to have much of anything. I thought you were fooling when you said you didn’t have any chairs. You live like a hermit!” Her fingers touched my arm. “I heard.”
“You didn’t hear anything, and you’re about to go away.” I backed up a few steps, sank down on my knees, and then rolled onto my side on my blanket. “How did you get past the old lady at the entrance?”
“I’m a bank manager, Inspector. My job is to talk people into things they don’t think they want, and out of things they do. She didn’t put up much of a fight, especially after I told her I was worried about you. She said people here have been wondering what’s wrong.” Miss Chon stepped tentatively into the room. She had on a long coat that was cinched around her waist. “I’ve been calling and calling you at your office. Whoever answered said you weren’t there and that you don’t have a phone at home, not in your room, anyway. That’s all they’d say.”
“Good, that’s all they’re supposed to say, and anyway it’s true. Some people have phones. I don’t want one. It would only ring at the wrong moment.”
She laughed, and my shoulder stopped hurting for a few seconds. “Oh, and when would that be?”
“When I’m not here, when I’m here, anytime at all.” Sometimes, they say, laughter stays in a room, but it didn’t in mine. It faded quickly, as if it wanted to get out of there as soon as it could. “I told you the other night, I’m not a social creature, I’m antisocial. Right now, I’m particularly antisocial. When I throw a party, I’ll send you an invitation. I need to sleep.” I closed my eyes. The door slammed before I managed to say, “Thank you for coming.”
Min put me outside for a few days, said I needed exercise and fresh air. “Stay away from the office,” he said, “I mean it.” He couldn’t give me any leave, but this was nearly as good. I didn’t want to be out of
the office, but I still couldn’t think straight because of the pills and the pain. The one thought that marched around in the haze in my head was Miss Chon. Every time I blinked my eyes, she was standing at my door, and I wondered why I didn’t have any fruit. I tried to force myself to forget the fruit and concentrate on why she had come to my place. Foreigners didn’t do that; they stayed in their hotel rooms, or somewhere. So what was she doing at my room?
I thought of an answer, but it disappeared in a burst of pain from my shoulder and I gave up thinking about anything. Midmorning, while I was sitting on some steps watching the sunlight as it came through the new leaves of the trees, an army guard marched over with an old man. “He’s causing trouble.” He handed me a piece of paper. “Get him out of my area.” The guard was young; the collar on his shirt was too big. But he was serious about his job. He gave me a serious frown and walked away.
I stood up. “You heard the fellow. He said you’re a troublemaker, Grandfather. Are you?”
The old man looked at the ground when he spoke. “You’ll believe what you want.”
We were standing on the sidewalk. Nobody stared directly at us as they walked by, but they all slowed, as if the thin, bent figure were a dead animal on the road. I skimmed the paper the guard had handed me. “Don’t let’s make this complicated. This is a list of complaints against you.” I held it up for him to see. “It’s a long list. You’re lucky it got to me before it went to someone else.”
He looked up at that. I thought he had the eyes of an old dragon, powerful eyes, smoldering for centuries with indignation. “I’ve not bothered anyone in this city,” he said. “No one has cause to complain. I live my own life. I follow the rules. I speak the words. If this generates complaints, then the Leader himself is as guilty as I am.”
“How about we lower our sights for the moment and just go over the list, shall we?” I looked around to make sure he hadn’t been overheard. “Leave other people out of it, if you know what I mean. We’ll make a few notations, maybe close the file and get on with our lives.
It might be that easy.” I went down the list with my finger until I found something that could be dealt with in a simple word or two. “It says here you told a group of people at a restaurant that food prices were too high. True?”
“You have to ask me? Don’t you buy food, or do they just give it away in this city?”
“I’ll take that as a yes. And you reportedly said that prices are high because farmers can’t plant what they want.”
“There isn’t a farmer doesn’t know that, and half of them would tell you if you asked.”
“I’m just going down the list, Grandfather. Why should I trust the farmers to plant the right thing? Why wouldn’t they plant what is easiest to grow?”
“Country people ain’t lazy.” He held up his hands. “This is how we live, with these. Not a bunch of merchants reselling the sweat of someone else’s labor.”
“So that’s it. A communist, are you?”
“Is that against the law nowadays?”
I folded up the list of complaints and put it in my pocket. “You’re in the capital, my old friend. What farmers say in the fields among themselves can get taken the wrong way by people in a restaurant.”
“That’s not my concern.”
“Well, it better become your concern, because the next time your name gets on a list, it won’t be a pleasant conversation. Do I make myself clear?”
“Is that a threat? Maybe the last person you bullied crawled away, but you won’t get that from me. I’m a simple man. I tell a simple truth.”
“Listen to me, the truth is too far away for either of us. Don’t go looking for it. I’m just giving you some advice. If you can’t follow it, then keep your mouth shut.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Where are you from?”
“Close by Kyonghung. Over that way.” He waved vaguely in the direction of the East Sea, a few hundred kilometers away.
“Who gave you permission to leave North Hamgyong and come all the way across the country?”
“I did.”
I stared at him. “You? You gave yourself permission? You can’t do that.”
“And why can’t I? General Yi did. Have you forgotten, or did you never know?”
“Six hundred years ago, they didn’t have the same rules we do.”
“And maybe there is a lesson in that.” He looked at me calmly. It was a simple observation.
“Yi Song Gye was at the head of an army when he marched into town. I expect he had someone along to advise him on what to say in restaurants. Well, I’m looking, and I’m not seeing anyone but you. You can’t do these things; you just can’t give yourself permission to travel across the country. That much I know.”
“But I did. I’m standing here, ain’t I?” He gestured broadly at the scene around him. “Who fought for this during the war? Somewhere near this place, there were hardly any streets left, no buildings, trees all broken, the bombing was so bad you couldn’t breathe the air. Dust and bones all mixed together. You wouldn’t know that to look at things now. Did I or didn’t I nearly die for this place?”
I said nothing.
“Well, did I or didn’t I? How can anyone keep me from coming back here? Do I need permission to visit the place where I nearly died a hundred times? Do you think country people are simple? Do you think we don’t understand?”
“We’re going in circles, Grandfather. Someone is going to notice you are missing at home; some nosy neighbor will wonder where you have gone off to. Let’s get you back where you belong.”
“When I’m ready, if I’m ready, I’ll say so. I’ll go back the same way I came, and if anyone doesn’t like it, they can kiss my hind end.”
“Here’s what I’m going to do.” I took out my wallet and peeled off a few bills, euros and dollars. “This is money for the train back home. There’s enough for a few overpriced meals, and since I’m paying, you
don’t get to comment on the cost of food. Frankly, I don’t think you’ll make it to Hoeryong without running into someone who has no tolerance for people without papers. But that is your business, not mine. Get out of town. And try to remember, you’re not General Yi.” I studied the old dragon’s eyes. “Though I’m sure he would have wanted you on his side.”
T
he office was deserted when I returned a few days later. My shoulder still bothered me, and I couldn’t sit very well because of my hip. Min had left a note on my chair: Do not answer the phone, no matter how many times it rings. I glanced at the file on the bank robbery case. No one had touched it in my absence. We were bumping against the deadline the Ministry had set, but I didn’t see any notes attached complaining about the lack of progress. I looked for reports on the disappearance of the nightclub owner, rumors picked up on the street, anything. Nothing. No one was willing to talk about it. Or rather, no one was willing to talk to us.
On the top of my cabinet was another note from Min, saying I was to look at a new file in his absence. He didn’t bother to say what it was about or, more important, where it was. I looked in my file drawers, but there was nothing that hadn’t been there for a long time. I walked down to Min’s office and checked on his desk. The phone rang, and I nearly picked it up without thinking. It rang six times, went halfway through a seventh, and then stopped. I don’t like not
answering the phone. It seems untidy, vaguely impolite, even if it obviously isn’t for me. The phone started ringing again but this time only rang twice. This was easier to deal with. If someone hangs up that quickly, they might not be so serious about the call. A quick check of Min’s desk drawers didn’t uncover anything. His file cabinet was locked, and though I knew where the key was, I decided to leave well enough alone.
I went back to my office and retrieved my copy of the Criminal Code from the pile of books on the floor. When I stood up again to stretch, I glanced out the window. A man was standing across the street, gazing up at our building. People rarely hang around Ministry offices; they usually think it bad luck even to walk nearby. The man pretended he was simply gawking, but he wasn’t doing a good job. It was definitely surveillance; whether it was hamhanded or provocative I couldn’t tell. Well, if he wasn’t going to pretend he was just standing around, neither was I. When he saw me wave from the window, the man threw his cigarette into the gutter and walked slowly away. His face was hidden by the brim of a cloth cap, but he had a strange gait that was as good as a photograph. The heel on each of his shoes was worn so much that his ankles stuck out. It made his white socks look like small dogs nipping at his feet the whole way down the street. I made a mental note to check the logs. If the guards had seen him standing around before, they would have made an entry.
Min’s car drove up. It stopped for an overly long time as the guard poked his head in the driver’s side window. I could hear an angry exchange before the guard finally backed away and waved the car through without much enthusiasm. Min emerged from the driver’s side. He never drove if he could help it, but the duty driver had gone missing a week ago; no one knew where he was, and we couldn’t get a replacement until he was accounted for. From the passenger’s side unfolded a tall, solid-looking Westerner with sandy hair. Min looked up to my window and nodded, before saying something to the Westerner. Then the two of them disappeared.
I contemplated going out the back way, but Min had already seen
me. There was nothing to do but wait. I sat down and rearranged the piles of paper on my desk. A piece of chestnut wood fell out of one of the stacks. I like chestnut, though there isn’t enough of it around. Very self-possessed wood, knows exactly what it is doing all the time. Besides which, when I have it in my hand, it reminds me of the smell of roasting chestnuts in autumn. Finally, something good, I was thinking, when my phone rang. It stopped. It rang. It stopped. It rang again. Then I heard footsteps, and Min landed heavily at my door. “Dammit, Inspector,” he said in an angry whisper, “don’t you answer your phone?”
“You told me not to.”
“Never mind that. Come to my office. Let me do the talking.”
The Westerner was examining a security patrol map of Pyongyang that was hanging on the wall next to Min’s desk. This is not a map foreigners are supposed to see. Min blanched and coughed. The foreigner turned around. He looked even taller and more broad-shouldered up close. “Detective, er, Boswell, was it?” Min said. “This is Inspector O.”
“Superintendent James Boswell, Inspector, delighted to meet you.” This was in fair Korean, though he sounded much like the Scotsman I’d met at the Koryo, with an accent that made some of the words sound like they were wrapped in fog. The man held out his hand, which was huge. We shook. I was relieved he did not feel obliged to demonstrate his strength by crushing my fingers. “I understand we will be working together.” The visitor sized me up solemnly as he spoke and, despite his greeting, did not seem delighted to meet me. Even pleased would have been stretching the point.
I glanced at Min, who frowned at having used the wrong title for Boswell. Min thought protocol was important—it was one of those rituals that helped make the world turn more smoothly—and he did not like to make protocol mistakes. He moved behind his desk, and for a moment, I was afraid he was going to sit down and lean back in his chair. “Detective, er, Superintendent James has been sent by London to work with us on the security for next week’s visit. Actually”—Min turned to the foreigner—“we thought the visit was going to take
place this week, but I was just informed it has been postponed—scheduling, aircraft clearances, something. The usual reasons. This was all only recently decided at high levels.” Min was lamely trying to defend the Ministry’s sloppiness in not informing us sooner. “In fact, I only learned of the superintendent’s arrival this morning when I was instructed to meet him at the airport. No arrangements have been made for his accommodations, I’m afraid.” He laughed at this, as if it were an amusing oversight on the Ministry’s part. “Inspector, you’ll see to that detail, I’m sure.”