A Corpse in the Koryo

6

I was back in our building at 1:45. I stood in the doorway to Pak's office, smoothing an oblong chip of persimmon wood with my fingers while I waited for Pak to get off the phone. I always carry a small piece of wood, the size of a matchbook, in my pocket. If you roll a piece of wood around in your fingers, eventually it finds the shape it wants to be and then starts smoothing itself. Every type of wood is different. Some take months to settle down; some can't wait to slough off the bad years.

I started doing it on sentry duty in the army to keep the circulation in my fingers. After I began work in the Ministry as an inspector, I discovered that while I was sitting at my desk, reviewing a file of unrelated facts, it helped me focus. Some people find it amusing; they call it my dirty habit. Other people can't stand it, which can be useful during an interrogation. I just have to lean against the wall, not saying anything, turning the wood over in my fingers, and they get nervous.

Pak was pleased to see me, until he glanced at my lapel.

"Don't blame me," I said. "They took the pin. Kang probably has it on his desk. Look, I don't want to get you in trouble. Why don't I put in for a transfer, maybe up north, to Kanggye?"

I put the persimmon wood back in my pocket. I'd been working it for a couple of months and it was only just getting calm. Persimmon usually goes faster than that. It's pretty wood if you treat it the right way. Otherwise it tends to be gaudy. You can't be sure you've found the heart with persimmon; it just wants to please. Walnut is different. My grandfather used to tell me that walnut couldn't give a damn. If you were going to match wits with walnut, he'd say, you'd better be serious.

"Pyongyang is getting too bourgeois. The traffic ladies won't even let you ride across the street. Incidentally, I think one of them almost smiled at me."

Pak ran his hand through his hair, a nervous habit he developed after his son died a year ago in a military training accident near the front.

Pak was going gray, though he wasn't that much older than I was, maybe five or six years. His hair was too long for a chief inspector. Recently, notes about "grooming" had been showing up in his file during the quarterly evaluations, but he didn't care. Ever since his son died, he had been stepping on rules.

I never met Pak's son. When he was still little, I returned from a liaison trip abroad with a present, a boxed set of tiny metal cars made in Japan. One of the cars was yellow; it was a bus. The others were red. The tiny doors even opened, and the black tires went around. Pak thanked me and said he was sure the boy would enjoy the cars, but a couple of weeks later I found the unopened box in the trash. I knew Pak wasn't worried about having goods from the outside, and I knew he was fiercely attached to the boy, always wanted the best for him. I didn't mention it, but that was the last time I brought back any gifts from a trip. Right after the boy died, I could sense Pak wanted to tell me something. Once or twice a week, always when the sun was getting low in the sky, he'd show up at my door and start a conversation, then fall silent. "Nothing, forget it," he'd say at last. "You got any of that damned Finnish vodka around?"

"Kanggye?" Pak said now, a surprised look on his face. "No, not Kanggye. Kanggye is full of hicks and crooks. You'd drop dead of boredom, or worse. Let's go for a walk."

We went down the stairs into the street. "Ever notice the way the sunlight dances on the river, Inspector?" The river was several blocks away, hidden behind buildings that were empty and served no purpose except as a source of shade for crowds waiting for a bus in the late afternoon.

Pak couldn't see the river; he was just keeping up a one-sided conversation. "You should try your hand at poetry, Inspector. Maybe join a club studying ancient dance."

Pak leaned forward when he walked, sailing into a wind no one else could feel. For someone who examined ideas seamlessly, his thoughts gliding like a razor cutting silk, he moved with a surprising lack of grace, shoulders hunched, arms swinging fitfully just out of rhythm with his steps. He never looked comfortable with gravity; it was a concession he seemed unwilling to make. As a man, Pak was handsome.

The shaggy gray hair made his crisp features seem more delicate and finely wrought. Everything fit perfectly on his small face, even the hint of a frown that rested almost constantly on his lips and the elusive sense of worry that never left his shining eyes.

As we walked, Pak fell silent. Then he was no longer beside me. It happened so abruptly that I went several steps before I realized he was gone.

"Inspector!" I looked around to find him down an alley, sitting under a willow tree whose branches drooped onto a rusted swing set. "Marvelous how we provide for children, the little princes and princesses. Nothing too good for them, eh? Care to guess the last time this was painted?"

I settled next to him. "If this is a social criticism session, I have nothing to say. It only gets me sour looks."

Pak hummed to himself, a folk tune about a young couple separated by a river no one could bridge. They would have drowned themselves, but before things got that far, Pak turned to me, speaking quietly. "Kim is not a captain."

"Figures."

"He's not from any joint headquarters."

"Army?"

"Close enough. He's from the Military Security Command, a colonel."

I didn't say anything. Pak coughed, another nervous habit. He lowered his voice another notch. "I'm not supposed to know where he's from, and neither are you."

"The car?"

"A picture. One lousy picture, Inspector, and Kim would have gone away happy."

"That's what I figured, he was the one who wanted the picture. Those types are never happy, you know that. Happiness doesn't sit well with their sort of noxious purity. They give loyalty a bad name. If the Center mentions it wants a dark night for a drive, Military Security looks for ways to erase the moon." Pak puffed out his cheeks, a sign I was going off on a tangent. I backed up. "Okay. The picture. Don't they have their own camera, something expensive? Or are they too dumb to know how to use it?"

"Inspector!" Pak's tone was always friendly, even when he was irritated with me, but now it was deadly cold. "Don't underestimate them.

If you'd pay attention once in a while, like the rest of us, you'd know that. Don't even think about underestimating them."

"What do we do now?"

"We go back to the office so you can call Kang."

I looked at my watch. "It's early, and you didn't really answer my question."

"At the moment, it will have to do. We'll tiptoe until Kim retracts his claws and pads away. Just hope we're too small for him."

"He may want us as a snack."

"Not if he can't see us, or hear us, or smell us. For the next ten days we fade into the background. See this swing set? It's colorless. Blends in with the dirt. Moves ever so gently when the wind blows. Even the birds won't shit on it, because they don't believe it's here. That's us. Do I make myself clear?"

"I bet they don't have swing sets in Kanggye."

"Inspector"-Pak got up and dusted off his trousers-"notice how the sunlight dances off the sunglasses of that guy on the corner?"

"Yeah?"

"Let's hope the battery in his camera isn't working, either."