Bamboo and Blood

by James Church

  “He was in a hurry,” Jenö said.

  “In a terrible hurry.” The general stood in the doorway with his back to us. “He thought this might be the only chance.”

  “For what?” I remembered what Pak had said about the theory of the “only chance.”

  “To change course. He told me he’d move heaven and earth this time.”

  Jenö?s right hand gripped the left. “That was his mistake. It’s always fatal. He shouldn’t have run out of patience.”

  “You can drown in patience,” the general said. “Sohn didn’t want to drown.”

  “And you?” I asked.

  As the general turned to me, he adjusted his jacket. Military and police, I thought; when they get uneasy, they tug at their clothes. “It’s quiet out here. None of those crazy plans going across my desk. The winds sing through the ruins. I write poetry and count the days of my life. When spring comes, I’ll be transferred. The azaleas are nice in Yongbyon in April, isn’t that what they say?”

  “And this site?”

  He shrugged. “It’s not police business, I can tell you that much.”

  “I may see you in Pyongyang, then.”

  “Or in Seoul.”

  “Keep your balance, General.”

  “And you.”

  “If we move enough piles of dirt,” Jenö said more to himself than to either of us, “sooner or later someone might notice.”

  Chapter Four

  The phone rang just as I walked into Pak’s office. Pak picked it up and frowned. “Well, tell your people to take care of it.” He listened for a moment. “How many? Are you kidding? Alright, we’ll be there as soon as we can. But don’t blame me.” He put down the phone and shook his head. “Get everybody in the building and let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “The soccer stadium. There’s a riot.” Pak grinned at me. “Can you believe it? A soccer riot in Pyongyang! I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

  “Soccer, this time of year? Who wears shorts in this weather?”

  “I guess sitting with all those people beats freezing alone in a cold apartment. Anyway, it’s a championship against some team from the Middle East. Maybe the powers that be figured they couldn’t function in these temperatures.”

  2

  “That was fun.” Pak rubbed his shoulder and let out a small groan. “At least it was different. I wouldn’t have thought anyone could throw a bench that far.” He groaned again, louder this time. “I think we did okay, Inspector. Lots of shouting. A few odds and ends onto the field. The referee cowering behind us. All sports, no politics, a little steam released and everyone happy. What do you say?”

  “I say we don’t let the boys in uniform have whistles anymore. The young guy next to me was blowing his the whole time. I would have killed him, but I think the sound paralyzed me.”

  “Probably just excited, that’s all. Not something they get a lot of training for, riots.”

  “As will be obvious to anyone who reviews the films. Wait until the reports are filed and the comments come back from the Ministry. Someone will decide we need crowd-control gear, and then they’ll decide we need training in how to use it.”

  “That means a lot of drills out in the cold before work. Fortunately for me, chief inspectors are exempt from field training. Unfortunately for you, inspectors are not.”

  “As long as it doesn’t happen again for a while, maybe I’m safe.”

  “Don’t get too comfortable, there’s another match tomorrow.”

  “Let’s hope it snows harder.” Outside, a few flakes were drifting down. I liked snow late in March.

  “Did you see that crowd? Magnificent, roaring like lions. Jumping up and down, a lot of yelling, and all perfectly harmless. Things are getting better, people can feel it. I don’t know about you, but I never worried we’d lose control. Not once.”

  “I don’t think we had control. I think they were just content to stay where they were and complain. If they had come onto the field, we’d have been squashed like grapes. Not one of our men had any idea what to do.”

  “And you did?”

  “No, I just shoved back whoever was shoving me. The whole time I kept hoping nobody would call the army.”

  “For a soccer riot? Not likely.”

  “The army is sticking its nose everywhere these days. They’d like nothing better than to show we can’t do our job.”

  “You want to know what I think? I think someone is going to have to pay for those benches. I hope it isn’t us. The Ministry doesn’t have the budget.”

  “I hate soccer. I always have. Too much running around to no purpose.”

  3

  “You’ve been a good host, Inspector. I’m appreciative. Tomorrow I’ll get on the plane, and you’ll be free of me. Admit it, you’ll be delighted.” Jenö was walking beside me on the street in front of the hotel. It wasn’t warm, but from the way the sun played with the wind and the clouds hurried across the sky, you could believe it might be soon.

  “‘Delighted’ might be a little strong,” I said.

  “I’m sorry about what happened at the lakeside. It was regrettable. I hope you realize I had nothing to do with it.”

  “M. Beret filled me in.”

  I detected a slight skip of the eyebrows.

  “That’s good.”

  “He said the Man with Three Fingers saved my life.”

  “M. Beret said that?”

  “Yes, I found it curious, too.”

  “You still feel guilty, don’t you? About leaving your three-fingered colleague all those years ago.”

  Somehow, Jenö had been approved for yet another visa. I had become resigned to his ability to collect visas. But that was different from being given access to my file. So who was talking to him? How would he know anything about what happened that night?

  “When the Pakistanis found your colleague, they didn’t know who he was. He had no identification, and no face. For some reason, they didn’t leave him to die. They brought him to the nearest army hospital, and the chief surgeon—a young man who had studied in London, as a matter of fact—put him together. There was nothing to do as he recovered, so they became friends. The surgeon taught him chess. The surgeon had acquaintances. And they knew how to play chess. It was awkward for the wounded man, picking up the chess pieces with that hand. The surgeon wanted to repair it. He was advised not to.”

  “I sense this is not going in a good direction.” The highway of possibilities was bumper to bumper from this point on.

  “Then go ahead and ask. Or would you rather not know?”

  “Why didn’t they want his hand fixed?”

  “Because they wanted him to burn with anger. Every time he lifted a chess piece, they wanted the anger to burn hotter. Eventually, during a chess game one afternoon, they casually mentioned the idea of getting even. I think he had just knocked over his queen and two or three pawns with his claw.”

  I didn’t like one bit the detail Jenö was bringing to bear on this little tale. He hadn’t just read it in a file. This was the sort of detail you got from talking to someone who had been there, or being there yourself.

  “We could do something about that, they said. How so, your friend asked. A little assistance, they said. Not much. Nothing extraordinary. ‘You can fix my hand?’ ‘Oh, no,’ they said. They didn’t want it fixed. They wanted him to carry it around as a reminder. ‘But we can give you information now and again. Steer you in the right direction. Much more satisfying than a couple of new fingers. You know, an eye for an eye. Think about it,’ they told him.”

  Jenö paused. I thought about it. Involuntarily, my hand went up to my eyes. I might as well ask. “How do you know all this?”

  “The surgeon was a strange creature—a Pakistani Jew from Karachi. He was a student of my father, who was a surgeon in the Royal Marines before he went to Israel.”

  “Does anyone drive a taxi in this tale?” Of course they did.

  Jenö s
hrugged. “Sohn took your colleague back. It had been Sohn’s operation, and Sohn felt guilty.”

  “Sohn.” I put a hand out to break my fall. “Sohn’s operation.” Suspicion is a leap into the unknown; you can fly away on suspicions. Confirmation is the fall to earth.

  “You never saw your chief?”

  “No. We weren’t supposed to.” I never saw my chief, the man who put us into an operation that had “hurry up” written all over it, the operation that was hung with “only chance” bunting from the walls.

  “Well, Sohn, your old chief, took him back, used him as he needed. Kept him overseas mostly, edged him into the special squad when it was time. His job? You’ll never guess his job.”

  But I already had guessed, a split second before.

  “To watch and protect you.”

  “Funny, I thought he wanted to kill me.” I laughed, one of those painful laughs that slips over the wall and gives everything away. “Can you believe it?” It would have been nice to sit down somewhere at this point, away from Jenö, away from everyone. It didn’t have to be a warm place, or a place full of light. It just had to be quiet, solitary. I could feel pieces falling into place; they’d all been there, just waiting to fall into place. They’d been waiting for me to put them on leashes and take them for a nice walk. Very patient, the pieces; even when they are staring you in the face.

  “Why would he want to do that? Mun didn’t blame you. He blamed whoever it was that had sabotaged the operation.” If this was supposed to be comforting, it wasn’t. I wished Jenö would just shut up. More pieces right now I didn’t need. I was on overload. Too bad, I knew what was next.

  Jenö smiled. “Ready for this?”

  “No.”

  “When he put you into the investigation of that woman in Pakistan, Sohn knew you would need protection. But he knew you wouldn’t accept it. So he gave you an enemy. You felt guilty as soon as you saw Mun; that’s all Sohn needed to get you back on board.”

  So. Sohn had set it all up. He’d kept it right at the edge of where I would figure things out. He’d even told me a story about his connection with the woman who died in Pakistan. I still didn’t know what happened to her. I would never know, wasn’t supposed to; more than that, it never mattered, not really. From the beginning, I’d chased that very idea up and down the lists of possibilities—maybe whoever had put us on the investigation of the woman didn’t give a damn about what happened to her. Sohn was smart. He was also a son of a bitch. No wonder someone broke his neck. I backed away from loathing Sohn for a moment. “How did Mun know Ahmet was going to try to kill me?” This was a fair question; the answer wasn’t obvious.

  “Ahmet, of the lovely daughter?”

  “You know who I mean.”

  “Mun knew. What difference does it make how he found out? Maybe he was tipped off.” Sure, maybe he was playing chess on the lakeside in Coppet smoking a French cigarette. “However it came to pass, your three-fingered friend surprised Ahmet, deflected the shot, and then who knows what happened next? Ahmet was pretty strong for an old man. You saw him. When he got mad, he was like a bull. He also carried that knife with him everywhere he went. Maybe he sliced off Mun’s cheek.”

  “M. Beret told me Mun had a broken neck.”

  “That, too.”

  “You don’t sound so sure.”

  “You want me to swear an oath?”

  “Why me? What did Ahmet have against me?” Other than the fact that for a few weeks, I lusted after his daughter. Ahmet’s radars must have been overloaded with what I was thinking every time I saw her.

  “It wasn’t because of your interest in his daughter.” Jenö nudged me. I would have slugged him, but it had turned cold again, a cold wind out of the north, and I knew my hand would hurt for days afterward. “Well, that wasn’t the only reason. It wasn’t just personal. Someone needed those missile talks to break up in confusion. They got to Ahmet. How I don’t know.”

  “I think I can figure out the rest.”

  “I’m sure you can. I’d be shocked if you hadn’t done it already.”

  “Where’s Ahmet now?”

  “Good question. I wish I could give you an answer.”

  It was such an outrageous lie, I waited to see what his eyebrows would do. They sat out the dance.

  “Just out of curiosity, because it doesn’t make any difference anymore and I know you’re not likely to tell me anyway, how do you know so much about Sohn?”

  “You might be very surprised how I know what I know, Inspector.” His mind was spinning through the possibilities. I’d seen people do that, try to pick apart one of my questions at the speed of light, slam shut drawers and doors and windows in their minds before I could get there.

  That might have worked on me a few months ago in the mountain hut, in the howling wind and bitter cold. Not now, not after everything that had happened. “Nice try, Jenö. But I don’t think so. Sohn told people what he wanted them to know. A lot of it wasn’t true, or not completely true. You believed him. You had no way to check what he told you, so you believed it. That saved a lot of trouble on your part. Belief is easy. It’s doubting that causes difficulties.” Jenö didn’t want to say anything. He wanted to leave it at that. So did I. “Have a good flight,” I said. “A driver will take you to the airport in the morning.”

  “One last thing. I have a present for you from a mutual friend.” He reached into the pocket of his coat and handed me a soft green leather pouch.

  “Shall I look inside?”

  “As you wish.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “Then it’s good-bye.” He became very formal. “The next time we meet, Inspector, I hope it will be friendlier. Warmer.”

  “My regards to Margrit.”

  “And Dilara?”

  Wonderful eyes, that girl. “Go ahead, give her my regards if you see her.”

  “I might.” He smiled briefly. “Don’t turn your back on your brother.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The enemy of my enemy … don’t forget.”

  “Same to you,” I said. His eyebrows didn’t seem to notice.

  4

  “I smell smoke. What are you doing, Inspector, burning the secret papers?”

  From down the hall, I heard Pak’s chair creak. It did that whenever the seasons changed, as if the wood hadn’t forgotten. Burning the papers—it was a joke we’d shared for years. “Imagine,” Pak would say, “at the moment of the attack, when the final battle begins, we’ll be caught in the middle of it, burning piles of documents of no possible use to anyone.” The instructions were very firmly worded. They were circulated twice a year, and we were supposed to sign them each time they passed over our desks. No matter what, all documents were to be destroyed. There was to be no—and this was underlined or, in the years red ink was still available, marked in red—absolutely no repetition of the last time, nearly fifty years ago, when truckloads of documents fell into enemy hands.

  “No, not paper,” I said.

  Pak stuck his head into my office. “What then? Are we installing gas grills in the desks and opening a restaurant?”

  I had emptied the leather pouch Jenö had given me onto my desk. There were five pieces of wood, each one cut to show off the grain. They were all different, all perfectly sanded, perfectly stained. Each had a small, perfect initial on it—J, A, D, S, B.

  “What kind of wood is sweet Dilara?” he asked.

  “Tree of Heaven.” I held it up for him to see. “Very pretty tree, but it can give you a headache.”

  I fed them slowly into the fire, one after the other. Each piece of wood burned differently, each according to its nature, but in the end, they all turned to ash. Pak watched the small flames without speaking. The last piece, I supposed, was M. Beret. His was a beautiful oval scrap of horse chestnut, the huge tree that sheltered the bench where we’d first met. I hesitated, gave M. Beret a swirl, and then committed him to the flames.

  “No.” I looked up at Pak
. “Not papers. Bridges, that’s all. I’m burning my bridges. You ever burn a bridge, Pak?”

  He seemed surprised and thoughtful all at once, though his face was now so thin it was hard to be sure. “The gingko trees in the courtyard are thinking about spring,” he said, filling the space around that moment when everything hangs in the balance. “I can always tell. Something about the way they reach for the light.”

  Lausanne

  October 2007