A Corpse in the Koryo

6

I put off leaving until the weather improved, but it kept raining hard and the wind picked up, so I ended up going over my notes again and calling around to see who might know something about Military Security operations. They didn't seem to have much of a rhythm to anything they did, but I figured they must have some sort of regular procedures. Every organization has regular procedures, even lunks and thugs. I wanted to have some sense of the telltale signs if they started after me in earnest. Nobody would talk to me. As soon as they heard me mention Military Security, their voices went toneless and they suddenly had to go to some meeting or another. The phone rang just before dinner, as I stood at my window watching rain splash off the sidewalk. It was my brother.

"We need to meet." I wasn't used to hearing his voice over the phone. It was low and rough, as if it had been soaked in gravel.

"We already did." I resisted the urge to slam down the receiver.

"Once a year is enough."

"Half an hour. At the Koryo."

"I'm busy." As usual, I was talking to myself. He had already hung up.

When I walked into the hotel's lobby, he was in the beer hall, slumped at the same table, fiddling with a matchbook. I strolled over but remained standing. "I'm here. What do you want?"

He didn't look up. "Sit, please, this is serious."

"Since when do you have anything serious to say?"

"Do us both a favor, cut the police inspector crap. Sit, just for five minutes. Hear me out."

I took off my coat, folded it carefully, and laid it on the bench.

"Don't waste my time." I sat down.

"Things are happening."

I started to get up again. "We've had this conversation."

"Sit. Shut up, just listen for once. Things are happening, but you don't know what they are."

"And you do?"

"I have a good idea, a lot better than yours. Everything will move, compass points will change, brilliant stars will be plucked from the sky.

Rearrangements. Rethinking."

"It won't be the first time. We'll survive."

He ripped a match from the pack and crushed its head between his nails. "No, this time is different." He swept the powder onto the floor.

"Okay, this time is different. That's life."

"No, that's not life." The waitress walked over and started to ask for our order. It was the same girl who had overheard us last time. When she saw it was my brother, she closed her mouth and backed away. "You are my younger brother. We are all that is left of the family. I looked out for you during the war, or have you forgotten?"

"The war is a blank, an empty room, no echoes, no shadows, no light, no dark. I don't remember, I don't dream, I don't dwell on it."

"You're a sad case, you know that? Some people still ache from the war, but you act as if it's nothing."

"Get to the point."

"The point is, you're going to have to trust me for the next couple of months."

"Meaning?"

"Stay out of my way. Get off this case, drop it, break a leg. Better yet, resign from the Ministry. I can have your files pulled, so yours won't be there when there's a review. I'll put them in a safe place until things calm down."

"Funny, Pak wanted me to resign, too."

"When did he say that?" My brother's voice became smooth, suspicious.

"That got your attention, I see. Never mind."

"So, you'll do it?"

"Then what?"

"These things are hard to predict."

"What makes you think I'm in your way?"

"You are."

"And if I stay where I am, continue my investigation?"

"I can't help you when the boom drops."

"You mean you won't."

"No, I mean I can't. I'll be fighting for survival. I have others to protect, programs, people." He paused. "Ideas."

"Ideas?"

"I've warned you. I've asked you. Trust me, just for now, just this once."

"You said 'ideas.' You mean class purity? Human perfection? The collective will?"

There was silence. He sat still enough to be a statue guarding the entrance to an old king's tomb, nothing but sadness in the air between us.

"For the first time in years," I said, "you interest me."

"Will you do as I ask, or not?"

"You know the answer."

His closed his eyes for a moment and put his hand to his forehead.

It was a gesture he used to make a long time ago, during the war, to contain the despair that washed over us on cold nights. "Then at least delay the investigation. That's all. Put it in a pending file. Cremate the corpse, lose a couple pieces of evidence, have the room lady reassigned."

"How do you know about her?"

"I told you, this case is beyond what you imagine."

"Don't touch her."

He stood up abruptly. "It's not a choice. I don't give a damn about the case, just where it leads. If you don't let it go, you'll burn. They'll scatter your ashes over the river at dawn."

"And if I burn, so will you."

"Maybe, maybe not. But I can't risk it."

"Ah, now we get to the point. I should save your skin."

He looked at me quizzically, then sat down again. "I thought you were smarter than this. You still don't get it." With his fingers, he traced a single Chinese character on the polished wood of the table. It was the character for family. "If you get too close on this case, you'll give them what they need."

"Them?"

He lowered his eyes. "You heard me."

I stood without a word and walked through the hotel lobby, out the front door, down the drive to the empty street. I walked quickly, but it was already evening, and the darkness overtook me.

"You don't have a brother, you do have a brother. Which?"

"Are you hard of hearing? I have no brother."

"Strange country. You have a relative, a brother, let's say, then he's not a relative anymore. Any other relatives you don't have who are trying to help you?"

"Careful, Richie. You are stepping into a minefield. Back off."

"Your grandfather was a hero. I respect that."

"Your family?"

"Big, three brothers and three sisters. My father had four brothers. My mother has a sister. They all have families of their own, a pile of kids.

When we get together in the summer, you can't hear yourself think." He watched my face closely. "I have children, two girls." He almost said something more, then checked himself.

"My grandfather used to say that my brother and I were close when we were growing up, that my brother protected me. I don't remember. He came back once from the orphans' school after a year or two. Spoke in a loud voice, said he loved the fatherland. Grandfather said it was a good thing to see loyalty in a young boy, but afterward I heard him tell a neighbor that it was damned unpleasant to be lectured by a kid, especially your own grandson."

"You ever think about getting married? Having a family?"

"Kang, Mr. Molloy. Kang is your topic A, topic B, and topic Z."

"You say he's dead."

"So he is, but even the dead have much to tell. Maybe that's why we worship them so. Wisdom from beyond."

"The sarcasm button just lit up on the tape recorder."

"Good, it works. Where were we?"

"Going to the mountains. In Hyangsan."

The road to Hyangsan led to the clouds, Still I climbed, listening to waterfalls, Breathing the scent

Of sacred pine trees.

– Kim? o [Vomite I S4-1 198) when I went to bed in the Hyangsan Hotel, it was a rainy, sticky summer night. When I woke, it was autumn. Not just the promise of a changing season, but the change itself, whatever the calendar said. The air was crisp and the light so pure that the mountains in the distance were etched sharply against the sky. The underbellies of the clouds off to the east were burning gold, but the sun was still low and the flanks of the rugged hills that ran alongside the fast moving stream coming down from the Myohyang Mountains were mostly in shadow. Small clouds nuzzled outcroppings along the hilltops, baby white puffs that looked like they had needed something solid to lean against during the night. They had overslept and been left behind. As I watched, they grew more transparent with each sunbeam that touched them. No struggle or sound of despair. They just disappeared.