by James Church
“Wring it, or break it?”
“Don’t tell me I’m being accused of murdering Sohn. Because if I am, I’m going back to my apartment. They can come for me there; I won’t make you suffer the embarrassment of having me led out of your office.” I stood up to go. “I know who is behind this, and so do you.”
2
“Sit down, Inspector, we’re not finished.” Pak looked painfully grim. “You’re getting paranoid. You think your brother is behind everything that happens?”
“Do we have something more to discuss?” I wasn’t going to talk about a brother that I no longer had. “This whole place is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. No one is giving orders, and no one is following them. Have you seen the reports on internal travel from the countryside? None of the posts are even trying to enforce regulations anymore. They say it’s hopeless, and not worth the effort. Besides, people need to eat. Our job isn’t to enforce starvation, or did I miss something in the latest memo while I was away?”
“You’re not focusing, Inspector. You’re hip deep in someone else’s business. I don’t give a damn about internal travel regulations. I don’t care if everyone in Yanggang skips all the way to the East Sea.” He saw the expression on my face. “Alright, the question is survival—who will survive and who won’t. Yes, this year is crucial. If we make it through this year, things will get better. Satisfied?”
“Says who? And more to the point, so what? I don’t want to play in that arena anymore, Pak. Survival, collapse—big words, big concepts, very big. Once you warned me against reducing things to their essence. Now I’m warning you, don’t stretch ideas past the point of meaning.”
“Is there more to that thought, or was it just something you had to get off your chest?”
“You have something else for me. What is it?”
“Your friend Jenö. He’s coming back.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe it. I don’t. Is he arriving on the cloak of the princess of the moon?”
“No, Inspector, everything is believable, and that will become clear when you find yourself at the airport Saturday morning, greet him, load his luggage into your car, help him check into the hotel, and sit across from him in the dining room of the Koryo.”
“How did he get another visa? Three times. How? Doesn’t anybody check those forms any more? What if someone tries to snatch him when he gets off the plane? He doesn’t have many friends left. Without Sohn, who is protecting him?”
“Someone must be, or he wouldn’t have a visa.”
“So when the big burly men come up and tell him that he is supposed to go with them, what happens?”
“Simple. You will interpose your body between him and them.”
“And say what?”
“That you are officially escorting a guest of the party and government of the People’s Republic, that as a ranking member of the Ministry of Public Security, you will not be detained, and that there will be hell to pay if anyone interferes.”
“What if they’re from the army?”
“Go down shooting, Inspector! Don’t worry, the army won’t show its hand on this. Anyway, the army may not be opposed to his being here for all you know.”
“For all I know. Nothing is all I know. What does he want to talk about?”
“I have no idea.” Not likely, but I let it pass. “If he wants a meeting with someone, he won’t be shy in asking. As I recall, he isn’t shy. Maybe he has a message; maybe he’ll give it to you. A word of advice this time—if he wants you to work for him, take the money and run.”
“If I had wanted to work with foreigners, I would have been measured for a suit. Is this really our job?”
“In this situation, Inspector, there is nothing that is not our job. You are our official greeter for the next few days. Only one thing.”
“I knew it.”
“You’re right. Not everyone is happy to see our guest.”
“I’m to put my body in between, you said.”
“I’m not talking about symbolic intervention. I’m being literal. I mean your body.”
“Not everyone wants him back.” Pak must have a clue who was in the opposition. “Anybody we know?”
“Your brother, for one, I’d guess.”
“That’s funny.” Now who was being paranoid?
“Is there a punch line?”
“I told him to stay out of my way or I’d do something.” This wasn’t something I wanted to discuss with Pak.
“And he nodded agreeably.”
“He said he wasn’t sure I would live that long.”
“In most countries, that would pass as a threat. Was it, or was it just a brotherly exchange?”
“Alright, I lost my temper with him. It wasn’t the first time, but this was the worst. I told him we weren’t brothers anymore. I meant it. I don’t want to speak to him, or see him again.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Yes, it might have been a threat. It’s hard to be sure with him. Everything he utters is nasty. I don’t remember if he said it before or after I mentioned I’d shoot him if I had to.”
“You said you’d shoot your own brother?” Incredulity is not in Pak’s normal range, but we were getting close. “He’s all the family you have left.”
“I told you, I lost my temper. Not lost, actually. More like I folded it up and calmly put it in my pocket.”
“Calmly,” Pak said. “That’s one interpretation. How about thoughtlessly? Or maybe stupidly? Your brother has plenty of ways to get at us, Inspector. He has a thousand arrows and a thousand archers. Did you think about that before crumpling up your temper and stuffing it in your pocket?”
“I didn’t crumple it. Anyway, it’s done, that’s all I can tell you. My brother doesn’t scare me.”
“Wonderful! And in which pocket did you put your fear, can you tell me that? I hope it is easily retrievable, mixed with your wood chips, because it may be that fear is the only thing that will save us.” Pak was building up a good head of steam. “I’ve heard that your brother tried very hard to block this visit. Just before I left his office, the Minister took a phone call, after which he suggested to me that you needed to do something to fix a family problem. Actually, he roared at me that if you didn’t fix this, he’d skin you alive. Apologize, out of fear if nothing else. If you can still locate it.”
I threw down the pencil. “This country is falling apart, and they’re worrying about whether or not my brother and I are speaking?”
“You really are Korean after all, aren’t you?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you can’t put your temper in your pocket, because there isn’t a pocket big enough to hold it. No one gives a damn whether you and your brother bash in each other’s heads. Except for one thing. Your brother has influence, baleful though it is.” Pak stopped and took a breath. He was furious, but I knew it wasn’t just at me. It was everything, everything that was wrong, everything that was weighing on him, everything we all saw, or tried not to see, every day.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “nothing you could say about my brother would offend me.”
“Offend! I’m not worried about offending you, Inspector. I’m trying to explain how dangerous a spot you’ve put us in. Us, you know? The two of us here; you and me, followed at a short distance by the Minister. One more thing. Stay away from the school.”
“I thought you wanted me to check in there once in a while to take the pulse. I was going over today, to see that girl. I have a feeling she might know the woman who was killed in Pakistan. I think they were in a Rachmaninoff club together at one point. They never got it approved, but I don’t think that’s a problem. Music is still an acceptable form of entertainment as far as I know, as long it doesn’t involve lewdness. I don’t suppose Rachmaninoff is a problem in that regard.” I thought about where I had been taken by the music that night in the jazz club in Geneva. I didn’t know how to describe it to Pak;
I couldn’t describe it to myself. “It’s a compass for a heart,” I said. “How else is anyone supposed to find a way through all of this?”
Pak started to say something, but then he stopped. He sat quietly for a moment. “Listen to me. We’re done with the dead woman, done with Sohn. We’re past it. Let someone else worry about the schools. To tell you the truth, it’s making some people nervous, the idea of you among the students.”
“What?”
“Stay away from the campus.”
“They think I’m going to fool around with one of the students? I don’t need this crap anymore. I’m taking a day off. If the Ministry objects, tell them to climb a tree.” I turned to go, but then I turned back. I shouldn’t have. “You know what? The Swiss asked me if I wanted to stay. Don’t make me wish I had taken them up on the offer.” I saw Pak recoil slightly, but there was nothing I could do about it now. M. Beret was right. Nothing would ever look the same.
Chapter Three
Tree sap smells sweet, even after a hundred years. Not like blood. When a piece of wood burns, it burns clean. Fire is pure because of the wood. Where do you think flames come from, if not from the wood?” This did not sound scientific to me, but I never said so, because when I was small and standing in my grandfather’s workroom, there was no sense asking questions. Best to wait; best to listen closely because he might not alight for more than a moment on the main point. He sometimes spoke carefully, and when he did I knew I was to listen and ask nothing, nor repeat it to others. “Blood has a stench, like death. We are blood; we bleed, all of us. People talk about pure blood. No such thing. Blood stinks; it is filled with what is impure. It carries what is foul and stinks of everything that would kill us. We carry our own poisons around inside. A pure heart, people say? No, a heart is soaked in blood, every day, every minute. It is filled with what is impure, and it pumps that throughout your being. Sap is pure, wood is pure, fire is pure. You’ll never walk into a forest and gag at the smell of dead or dying trees.”
I didn’t know what he meant then, though I listened carefully because he was speaking in a low voice. When he wanted me especially to pay attention, his voice became soft and the accent of his mountain village came out. It was hard to understand, but the worst thing I could do at such times was ask him to repeat something.
“They’ll tell you about the glory of sacrificing your blood.” At this I became especially alert. The reference to the ubiquitous “they,” never defined, never brought into focus, it meant I should listen closely. “They have made blood glorious. The more they wade in it, the better things will be; that’s what they believe, or they want you to believe.” He turned away, and when at last he looked at me, I could barely sit still in the fury his look contained. “Your father, your mother—how much blood does it take?” He began to bellow like a wounded ox. “Get out! Go and walk somewhere, off by yourself, away from me. Are you going to sit there like the rest, are you going to listen with your mouth slack and then walk in line, following the one in front over the cliff? Will you bend in the wind, like some damned grove of bamboo? Don’t you know the story? The prince was slain by Japs, they put his body in a room and his blood dripped to the ground, and from there grew bamboo. Is that what you want to be? Bamboo that has fed on blood, even the blood of a prince? Get out! Out! Don’t come back until you find the answer. Not on your lips, but deep, deep inside where there is no one else but you.”
This scared me to death. The neighbors had heard, I was sure. How could anyone not have heard for a kilometer around? They would be watching from windows and doorways, listening from where they sat under the trees. My grandfather had told me to go away. They would know what he said. I would be an orphan, no home, no family. And where would I go? What would become of me? No one would take me in, I would wander until I dropped from hunger, and then my vile blood would pollute the rice fields. I ran outside, and didn’t stop running until I knew that I would never be like bamboo, never, no matter what anybody said.
2
I’d been back more than a week, and had convinced Pak I needed to go out and look around my sector. Jenö was safe in the Koryo, tired of waiting for a meeting that never seemed to happen. I was standing on a corner, looking at the willow trees along the street. It was quiet; once in a while a car went by, but even the engines seemed muffled. Most of the buildings on the main street were empty. The apartment houses that stood the next street over showed a little more life. Someone had a window open, and the lace curtains billowed in the March wind. Two women walked by, neither one a resident in my sector unless they had slipped in while I was away.
“I don’t like seeing corpses on the sidewalk,” the first one said.
“Sorry they offend your sensibilities.”
“No, it isn’t the bodies, it is the reason they are there.”
“They’re there because that’s where people are dying these days.”
“They’re dying because of decisions.”
“Careful.” They both looked around.
“The South Koreans say we are their brothers,” said the first, lowering her voice as they walked past me. “It was on a piece of paper my cousin found on the ground.”
“I never pick up those things. They might have poison on them.”
“It didn’t seem to hurt him. But it wouldn’t surprise me. The South Koreans want us to go hungry. They are willing to let the children starve. More than that, they want the children and the babies to starve. They think that will push us under.”
“Have you noticed? There are hardly any babies being born.”
“No one has the energy.”
“No one has the will.”
“Did you eat today?”
“Did I? I don’t remember.”
They turned and walked toward the river. I went the other way, for fear of what else they might say.
3
The phone call had come Tuesday morning saying that the meeting would take place that afternoon. I had to drive fast, but Jenö didn’t complain. There was still a little sun left when we pulled up to the rickety bridge. The gaunt guard studied my ID for a long time. He paid no attention to Jenö?s. As soon as we entered the hut, Jenö said to the general, “I’m sorry about your brother-in-law.” The major wasn’t present, and there was no coughing coming from the back room.
“His brother-in-law?” I stared at them both.
“Sohn, the general’s brother-in-law.” Jenö sat down at the table without being invited. He relaxed.
“Always go with the cigarette butts,” I said.
“Do you think you’re standing here right now because I trust you?” The general shook his head. “Not a chance, Inspector. Sohn thought I should meet you. Otherwise, you would have been turned away at the gate the first time. Maybe shot.”
I looked at Jenö. “How did you know Sohn’s brother-in-law was in charge of this place?”
“I didn’t, not until Sohn told me. He thought the military might go along with selling off the missile program if there was money in it for them, turning the production sites like this one into moneymaking enterprises.” He stood up and strolled slowly around the hut. On the wall was a map of the site. He stared at it intently. “I have no idea what this place could be. It would have to be leveled. There’s certainly nothing worth saving.”
“Nice line of trees along the road,” I said. “Poplars.”
“Too bad they’re not much taller than matchsticks.”
The general cleared his throat. “If there is nothing else …”
“Somehow, you didn’t strike me as a field officer.” I smiled at him.
He smiled back. “Insufficiently crazed?”
“No, you move too much like a panther.”
“Meaning?”
“Unerring sense of balance.” I waited to see if he took that the wrong way. He didn’t. “So what happens now?”
“Now?” It was my question, but the general was speaking to Jenö, as if I had disappeared from the room. �
��Now, we’re almost out of the woods. Nothing changes, nothing stops. We test what we need to test. We spend what we need to spend. I hear something is planned for the summer in Hwadae.”
“Things will get better until they get worse again.” I listened to the sound of my voice. Neither of them seemed to notice. “No one understands that things can’t go on like this?” It wasn’t good, staying invisible too long in these situations. The trick was rematerializing in the same form that you were when you were last seen.
“I need some air.” The general opened the door. “Things can always go on, Inspector. It’s our curse. There is always a break in the clouds, always. Sohn knew that. It’s what worried him.”
