Bamboo and blood

2

It had started snowing again and was almost dark when I heard what sounded like a bear coming up the stairs. The door to Pak's office slammed. There followed fifteen minutes of angry words and sharp barks. I leaned into the hall to hear better. Suddenly, Pak's door flew open.

"There you are, Inspector." He motioned to me, a slight warning. "Come in and sit down." Pak walked back to his desk with that uneasy gait that meant he was going to tell me something I didn't want to hear. "Close the door while you're at it."

I half expected the bear would be sitting across from Pak, but when I stepped into the office, the visitor's chair was empty. Instead, in the far corner, a man lounged against the wall. If Pak wanted the door shut, it meant we were not going to have a conversation about the weather.

"Inspector." Pak cleared his throat. "This is Comrade Sohn. He is from-"

"Never mind where I am from." The man barked to clear his own throat and then coughed to make sure the job was done. His ears were exceedingly small and perfectly shaped. It was as if the old ones had been surgically removed, replaced by a new pair from a child, and pasted to the side of his head, but slightly too low. On a woman, they might have looked good. Like shells. On him, it made you wonder if he was underdeveloped from the neck up. I tried not to stare. No wonder Pak had been so upset at the mention of ears.

"We can skip where he is from." Pak indicated I was to sit in the vacant chair. "But I believe he has something to tell you."

As far as I was concerned, Sohn had stepped off on the wrong foot. "I'm all ears," I said. I cleared my throat, not to be left out.

The man looked closely at me, weighing whether I was going to be trouble. Then he grunted and glanced around the office. It wasn't exactly disdain on his face, but he managed to convey that he was not usually to be found in this type of unimportant setting. Maybe that's why he was standing, to make clear he didn't feel completely comfortable in such a place. "Normally, our conversation wouldn't be held in offices like this," he said at last and coughed. "Normally, your supervisor would have nothing to do with it. Normally"-he paused to emphasize how abnormal everything was-"I would just borrow you for a while. You'd be put on leave from your duties, and then when everything was done, you'd drop back into this place. If all went well, you wouldn't drop back from too great a height." He stopped to make sure he had my attention. He did. "But your Minister has recently made clear he doesn't want his people disappearing like that these days. 'Too disruptive,' he complains. Your Minister has a reputation for complaining overmuch sometimes, did you know that?" The little ears waited for either of us to respond, but we knew enough not to.

"Naturally." Sohn barked twice and then continued, "Things being what they are, I try to help out where possible. Your ministry is important to us in these troubled times. That's the reason, and the only reason, I'm including your supervisor in this conversation." So it wasn't that I was supposed to be present when Sohn talked to Pak, it was that Pak was to be present when Sohn spoke to me.

I waited for Pak to say something. It was his office, it was his status being knifed. He sat back, subdued, very unlike the way he had been with the crowd from the special section not so long ago. There should at least have been some tension in his eyes. There wasn't. All I could detect was a quiet amusement, as if over a joke told long ago.

"What do you want from me?" If Pak wasn't going to say anything, I might as well speak up.

Sohn looked at Pak and smiled. "Your Inspector has asked what we want from him. Will you tell him, or shall I?"

Pak looked out the window. "It's your game, comrade."

"Fine." Sohn turned to me. "Plenty, Inspector, I want plenty." He barked and grunted, which I figured meant he was going to say something important. "So listen carefully. Don't take notes; don't ask questions. Just listen."

I nodded and barked to show I was on his wavelength. Pak shot me a sharp look.

"These are perilous times. It is not clear that we will survive another year." Sohn said this in a normal tone of voice, like the one normal people used when they talked about normal things-the cost of bus fare, or the price of a movie ticket. "Does that shock you, Inspector? That I should be candid about something so sensitive? But, why? Everybody thinks we're on the edge of the precipice, don't they? Don't you?"

If the man imagined for an instant I was going to answer a question like that, he was crazy. "I'm still waiting to hear what you want," I said, with less humility than Pak had indicated he wanted from me during this session.

Sohn moved so he was standing over me. I tried not to notice his ears. "I know you, Inspector. Believe me, I wouldn't be standing here if I didn't know you inside and out, top to bottom. Your type worries a lot, but you also know how to act when the time comes. This is it-time to act. Things will get worse, maybe a lot worse. Those who cannot take the pain this winter, cannot drag themselves through the final few months, they'll fall by the side of the road. We're better off without them." From the corner of my eye, I saw Pak shift in his chair. "And I'm not talking theory, Inspector. I know what things are like in the provinces. I just got back from there. They are as grim as everything you've heard. They are as grim as our enemies say. This is the fight for survival. But do you know what? We will survive. Despite what everyone thinks, or fears, or hopes-we will survive."

"I hear they're shipping in food, our enemies," I said.

This time it was Pak who coughed. "Get to the point, Sohn."

"The point. Thank you, Chief Inspector. The point is we need more from them, our enemies. More food. More oil. More whatever they are ready to squeeze through the eyedropper they use to measure what they will give. As the inspector just said, they are shipping in food, but we must have more. That's where you come in." He leaned down slightly, so I was looking directly at one of his ears. "You will help us get it, Inspector."

"Me? What if I say no?"

"Ha! That you cannot do. You can't. You can't say yes or no, because no one is asking you to make that choice. You have no choice because there is none. You will carry out this assignment; it is what you are going to do. Period. We are down to the naked essence of existence, reduced to simplicity itself." I thought of Pak's lecture on "essence." He must have heard that line on "essence" somewhere. Maybe it had been in one of those cadre lectures I avoided; maybe it had been the theme in one of those newspaper editorials I never read. Or maybe Pak had regular meetings with Sohn, and this whole conversation today was a charade for my benefit. I looked hard at Pak. No, it wasn't a charade. The memory of amusement had left his eyes. His face was drained.

"This is not an order, Inspector." Sohn wasn't finished talking. He stood up straight again and leaned against Pak's desk. "Let's be as precise as a bayonet through the throat. This goes far beyond an order. It transcends an order. What shall we call it? I know!" He snapped his fingers. "It is an imperative. This is one of those times when the old concepts don't fit. We are past any notions of shirking or obeying. This is about the survival of the nation. Not this country, not this person or that individual, but the nation, our nation. And on that, you have nothing to say. We will survive, and you will make sure of it. Your grandfather ensured we survived; you will do no less. Not one drop less."

"That's it. I don't think I can help you, Sohn." I stood up and opened the door to leave. I didn't think, I just did it. Pak would be furious with me for this sort of insubordination. Who knows what Sohn would do? Anyone who put bayonets and throats together into the same image was tougher than the normal party hack. But if he was going to drag my grandfather into this, as far as I was concerned, the conversation was over. I could deal with hot water. I always had.

"Sit down, Inspector." Pak was no longer subdued. He didn't often issue commands to me, but there was no mistaking his tone. "You'll leave when I give you permission, and I haven't done that. And you"- he turned to Sohn-"you don't come in here and push my staff around. How many times do I have to tell you people to lay off? If there is any semblance of order left in this city, it is thanks to officers like Inspector O."

Sohn took in the surroundings again, four bleak walls and a window looking nowhere. "A little box for little men. Trust me, I'm not here to debate. Day after tomorrow, the inspector leaves on assignment. He's my body until that assignment is over. End of story." He threw a piece of paper on Pak's desk. "This is the order, signed by your minister. I heard you only liked signed orders. Go ahead, look it over."