by James Church
2
The entire team—all six of them—sat around a table in a small room that overlooked the entrance and the wide steps that came up from the driveway. The curtains were shut, and the air was stale, a little overheated, I thought, as soon as I walked into the room. Five heads turned and followed my progress to the one empty chair. Only the delegation leader ignored me. He sat hunched over an open binder of papers, occasionally marking a page or underlining a word. A tiny black notebook lay to one side. As I sat down, a young man across the table frowned. “You’re late,” he said.
His face rang a bell, but only faintly. “No one told me we were meeting until a few minutes ago,” I said mildly. “A bit more notice might have been helpful. It certainly would have been polite.” This was an awkward beginning to what already had all the hallmarks of an unpleasant assignment. They didn’t want me around; that much had been made perfectly clear.
“Never mind,” the head of delegation said, still studying his papers.
Nice touch, I thought. Busy man, too busy to look up. He might not know me, but I already had become as familiar with him as I wanted to be. His file had been handed to me before I left Pyongyang, two bulging folders stuffed with irrelevant gossip and a nugget or two of useful information. There had even been a fair character sketch by someone who had watched him closely for years. The photographs, as usual, were old. He had lost weight, and maybe a little bit of hair.
“You’re here. Exactly why or what you’ll be doing on this delegation isn’t clear to me. All we know is that your name was transmitted as a late addition. There aren’t even any instructions on how I’m supposed to introduce you.” He looked up and smiled wryly, just as he apparently had done hundreds of times before in situations he didn’t like. I studied his face. The photographs in the file may have been old, but his eyes were the same—more observant than they first appeared. If you didn’t pay attention, you’d think he had soft eyes. It was a mistake you didn’t want to make.
A few days ago, just before I climbed the stairs to the airplane in Pyongyang, Sohn had emphasized that I was to keep close tabs on this man—our friend the diplomat, Sohn had called him. “Make sure you keep him in your sights,” he said. “Don’t forget, the Center considers the diplomatic mission in Geneva a sensitive place, for reasons that go beyond anything you’d be interested in knowing. In simplest terms, if our friend the diplomat doesn’t return to Pyongyang from there, you’re in shit up to your ears.” I figured if Sohn mentioned ears, it must be serious.
At the moment, the delegation leader didn’t look like he was in danger of going anywhere or doing anything untoward. I took out a couple of pencils and lined them up in front of me. Then I reached into my jacket pocket and found a small notepad, which I put next to the pencils. When I had everything straight and square, I looked up and studied each of the delegation members in turn. Most of them gave me blank stares, or what they hoped were blank. It’s hard for people to keep up the pretense of disinterest when they are holding their breaths.
“Whatever you decide,” I said at last, after I’d wrung the final drop of drama from the moment. The delegation started breathing again. At least they knew where things stood. Showing them I couldn’t be pushed around was something they could understand. It wouldn’t do any good to go beyond that, especially if I was supposed to keep close to their boss. Doing that would be easier if he didn’t bristle every time he saw me.
“Good.” The delegation leader didn’t seem fazed by how long I had taken to answer him. In his universe, if he didn’t react to an insult, it fell to the floor and could be kicked away. “I’ll say you are Mr. Kim, a researcher in the Ministry. Can you remember that? They think everyone is named Kim, so it won’t even register with them.”
“Fine by me.” Nice jab—can you remember that? I ignored it, but it didn’t exactly fall to the floor. Everyone around the table had heard it and was scoring one for their side. I wasn’t crazy with the title “researcher,” either. It sounded like I brought tea in for the heavyweights.
“That’s fine, then,” he said evenly. “Everything’s fine. I’m glad we settled that.” Another smile. “Perhaps something will come in the overnight cable traffic that will tell us a little more about how we’re supposed to deal with you.” He looked around at the others, but none of them had anything to add, so he continued. “Sometimes we break for coffee during the talks. We do that to manage the pace. It has nothing to do with wanting coffee or one of those little cookies we’ve gone out and bought. You should hang back when we break. Don’t mingle.” He slipped the little book into the inside pocket of his coat. “Pretend you’re working on your notes or something. If one of them comes up to you, act like you don’t speak English. You don’t, do you?”
“I know some.” A little cookie now and then would be good.
The man across from me studied the top of the table carefully. Now I remembered. We’d had an entire conversation in English, standing in the hallway of the Foreign Ministry a few years ago. It was in the spring, and the windows of the offices were open to let in the breeze. Neither of us had said anything important, just a few idle minutes trying to come up with a vocabulary word or two the other didn’t know. “At least, I think I can speak a couple of words. I used to.”
“Well, forget whatever you knew. If they sense you understand English, they’ll constantly be trying to draw you out. How about French? You don’t know any French, do you? German?”
“No. Don’t worry, I’m not here to get in your way.”
This time his smile was broader, more encompassing. There was nothing I could do but get in his way, and we both knew it. “See that you don’t, and everything will be fine. You probably have your own reporting channels.” There was a sense that he was trying hard not to sound irritated. “I realize you’ll write what you feel like writing, and it is unlikely you’ll show it to me before sending it out. That’s how these things usually work, isn’t it?” He pursed his lips and took off his glasses. That had been in his file, how he pursed his lips when he was displeased. “An unconscious pout,” one entry read.
“Do you need to see our reports as well?” His voice took on a mock-friendly ring. “Even if you read them, of course, you have no authority to make changes. I’ve already checked. The rules for outgoing telegrams from a permanent diplomatic mission are the same as those that apply to the embassies—the ambassador at post gets to comment on whatever goes through our channels if he wants to, but his is the last word. Especially”—he let that word burrow in nice and deep, and then repeated it to make sure there was no mistake—“especially here.”
“Unless, of course, there are overriding orders.” I threw that in the pot to see if it would unsettle him. It didn’t.
“There are no such orders. If any do come in, let’s deal with them then, shall we?”
It must have been something they taught in the Foreign Ministry. Never let a point go unchallenged. There were times we worked that way, too. But I wasn’t in the mood, and this didn’t seem like one of those times. Something about that episode on the bench earlier in the morning had set my teeth on edge. I wasn’t ready to battle with one of my own diplomats over millimeters. “Actually, I don’t need to see your reports; I’m not interested in reading fiction.”
There was an intake of breath from the delegation, which stared at me in unison like a set of oversharpened penknives. Then they each turned away and began going through their script for the meeting. One or two sneaked a glance at me. The young man smiled to himself. He looked like he might know a thing or two. I made a mental note to talk to him later, when I could get him alone.
3
On the day I left Pyongyang, almost at the last minute while we waited in a special room that kept me out of sight of the rest of the passengers and anyone else in the terminal building, Sohn finally told me why he was sending me to Geneva.
“You’ll be on the delegation to the talks.”
“What talks?”
>
“The missile talks.” He watched me closely. “Something the matter?”
“Nothing.” Missiles. Hwadae county. Pakistan. The dead woman. A lot of tabs were fitting into a lot of slots.
The first round of negotiations, Sohn said, had been in Berlin. They had produced nothing, other than the estimate that the second round wouldn’t produce anything, either. Just having another session was considered good enough. After some internal discussions in the Center, it had been decided that, off to the side during the next round of talks, there would be a chance to pass the following message: Beware, you never know when starving people might do crazy, irrational, dangerous things. They’d told Sohn to find someone who could do that, and after rummaging through the files, he’d selected me. I had been overseas, I didn’t freeze up around foreigners, and I had a good revolutionary pedigree. They also wanted someone to keep an eye on the delegation leader, but most of all, my assignment was to deliver that message. The messenger was important, and I checked all the boxes, that’s what Sohn said. I didn’t believe him. It was all smoke.
“How do I deliver this message? Over drinks? Crudely handwritten on a piece of paper?”
“Up to you,” Sohn said. “You’re smart. You assess the situation. But however you do it, slip it in like an assassin’s blade. Make sure they feel it. Make sure they don’t forget.”
Why not let the diplomats do it? I asked. It was their job, wasn’t it? It’s what they’re trained to do, to circle around the bush, dropping hints here and there, shards and splinters to be reassembled in faraway buildings. Sohn snorted. “I don’t trust them to do it right. Most of a message isn’t content anyway, but context, tone, the play of light and dark across the mind. These striped pants have no sense of menace. They smile too much, they laugh.” He laughed. “You see? It sets you at ease.” Then he barked and cleared his throat. “I don’t want the Americans at ease. I want them tossing at night, waking at odd hours in a sweat.” He laughed again, as if he finally found something that pleased him. “What sort of message is that?”
“Why the drama, hiding me away in this little room?”
“You’ll board a few minutes after everyone else. The plane will wait around with the door open until our sedan pulls up. The crew will know there was a last-minute passenger put aboard; they’ll tell their friends. The story will seep in here and there. That’s good. I’ll get out of the car just long enough to wave good-bye. I want some people to wonder what I’m doing.”
4
The delegation leader looked at his watch and stood up. “Time to get moving,” he said. He turned to me. “We got off to a bad start. I apologize.” He extended a hand. “Nothing is easy these days. It’s hard enough to do my job under normal circumstances. We’ll stay out of each other’s way.”
I went on high alert. I’d been with smooth characters before, but this one was going to be a champion, I could tell. I shook his hand.
“Once we go into the meeting room, please sit at the end, next to Mr. Roh.” The young man, the one who had smiled to himself, nodded slightly. “If we decide to break for a delegation meeting, come out of the room with us. It’s their turn to invite us to dinner, which they’ll probably do just as we adjourn for lunch. I’ll accept, but we’ll make excuses for your inability to attend.”
This was the first real sign of the game he was going to play, keeping me in a box. “I’m afraid I have to tag along,” I said. “Where you go, I go, too.” That card was on the table. I wanted to see what he would do with it.
He shook his head. “The instructions I received this morning said only that you were to attend the talks; there was nothing about the dinners.” The man was a curious mix. One minute he was pliable, the next he was unbending. His tone of voice stayed calm throughout; even the look on his face didn’t change that much. Somehow, though, he conveyed what he wanted you to know. On my being at his dinner table, he was adamantly opposed.
“Maybe not, but I’m afraid you have no choice.”
His reply was cut off when the door opened and a woman looked in. “Their cars are on the way up the drive.”
“Very well. We’ll greet them in the entry hall. Everyone put on a pleasant face.” The delegation leader turned to me. “It’s how we conduct our business. We are pleasant. You don’t object?”
I smiled at him. “Will this do?”
“It would be best if you came in at the last minute. If they see a new face during the initial pleasantries, it may put them off.” He looked at my jacket and swallowed hard. “Your pin seems to have gone missing.”
“It does seem to have done that.” I hadn’t even brought the pin bearing the leader’s small portrait with me to Geneva. I was indifferent to wearing it, but I didn’t like sticking my finger every time I put it on. Pak never commented on its absence anymore, and Sohn—though I was sure he had noticed right away—never said anything. I straightened my tie. “How do I look?”
The delegation filed into the front hall. I went over to the window and pulled back the drapes. A sedan pulled up, followed by a van. The press had been allowed in the compound, and the photographers were taking a lot of pictures of nothing. When I heard people moving into the meeting room, I slipped in the side door. No one gave me a second look.
Once we were seated, the introductions began. People nodded solemnly when their names were mentioned. “And finally, at the far end to my left is Mr. Kim.” The faces across the table turned to look. “He is a researcher in the Ministry, assigned temporarily to our mission here.” It sounded ridiculous, though the other side didn’t seem to notice. A couple of them made notes; the rest stared at me for a moment, thoroughly uninterested or uncomprehending. Or both.
I didn’t plan on picking up my pen during the session. No sense looking like a minor scribe; it was bad enough to be introduced as a researcher. When the time came to pass the message Sohn had given me, it was important that they thought I had credibility. I couldn’t give off those vibrations if they considered me a table sponge. One member of our delegation had already closed his eyes. That wasn’t something I could do. Sohn had told me I was supposed to keep my eyes open. I decided to sit back and frown, with an occasional glance at the ceiling. From across the table, maybe it would appear I was following the discussions with disdain. It only took a few minutes for me to realize that was impossible. I was bored to tears. My eyes shut, and it was pleasant until I heard Mr. Roh whisper in my ear, “We try not to snore in these sessions.” He closed his notebook. “But we can petition for an exception in your case.”
5
“You spend a lot of time looking at the lake.” The next morning, the tall man sat down beside me. It was the same bench, but this time he wore a dark blue beret. He seemed more comfortable in that than in the green felt hat. “It seems it might snow. Nothing to write home about,” he said, looking straight ahead, almost as if he didn’t know I was there. “But then, you don’t write home, do you? You don’t write, you don’t phone. You’re almost always out by yourself. Why is that, I wonder? It’s very odd. You’re not thinking about defecting, I hope.”
“Only if it gives you sleepless nights.”
“Why did they introduce you at the talks yesterday as a ministry researcher?”
“It’s an honorary title.” I smiled. “I’m flattered that you were listening.”
“It’s not what appears on your visa application. I could have you thrown out for lying to immigration authorities.”
“Why, what did it say on the application?”
“You didn’t fill it out?”
“Of course not. Do I look like I fill out my own visa applications?”
“It says you are a third secretary.”
I turned to him. “Third secretary? They could have done better than that.”
“You are more interesting than I was led to believe. How about a cup of coffee? Let’s get in out of this cold wind.”
“No, thank you. I appreciate the offer, though.” I thought
that sounded diplomatic. A little oily, perhaps.
“Don’t worry, you can spend some time with me. None of your people are watching.”
“Someone is covering my back.”
“No. They were, but their car was in a minor accident and they’ve been detained.”
“I see.”
“These things happen in Geneva. On the weekends, with all the traffic, the roads can be difficult to negotiate.”
“Just the same, I think maybe I’ll just walk back to my mission. I saw some chestnut trees along the street I want to look at.”
