Bamboo and blood

7

Sunday it rained, and when it didn't rain, it snowed. That night I had trouble sleeping. It was ten o'clock in the morning in Pyongyang, no wonder I couldn't sleep. So what if the Swiss clocks showed 2:00 A.M.? That wasn't the time in my head, or on my watch. I never changed my watch to local time. Who the hell cared what time it was in Switzerland? The message Sohn had given me kept running through my head. When was I going to deliver it?

I could see Sohn's face, grim and deliberate, as he had gone over what he wanted me to convey. "They must be made to believe that we are about to collapse, that they will inherit more maggots than they can count, more bodies than they can bury, more disease than they can cure, more chaos than they can stomach. They are convinced that we are weak, on our last legs, about to collapse? Let them; let them worry every night when they go into their warm beds that we are about to hold our breaths until our wasted bodies fall across their doorstep. That's good. We want them to think that, because it is the last thing they want. Do you imagine for one moment that they look forward to caring for us? Do you think they want the responsibility for twenty million beggars? Of course they don't. It would interfere with their shopping, their specialty foods, their imported blouses and ties. The last thing our southern brothers want is for us to crawl into their fat lives, and so they will pay to prop us up. Believe me, Inspector, they will pay whatever it takes, and we will not let them get off on the cheap."

"So," I said, "we show the Americans we are weak."

Sitting in that little room in the airport, I noticed that Sohn had rheumy eyes. That and his small ears did not make him look like a man on the way up. But appearance wasn't everything. These days it wasn't anything. Pak was right on this. The essential question wasn't how pretty Sohn was, but how much power was behind him. I couldn't be sure, but the more I thought about it, the more I had to guess it was plenty. Our ministry wasn't easy to kick around; snatching personnel to send on funny assignments took clout.

"No!" Sohn shouted. I had jumped. People with rheumy eyes usually didn't shout like that. "Haven't you been listening? Not weak. Crazy. We show the Americans we are crazy, crazy enough to pull the trigger. Still strong enough for that, and plenty crazy. If they think we're weak and rational, we're finished. They have to think we have weapons that can destroy them, because in fact, we do. For that, these foolish missile talks cannot succeed. If we end up making a deal with the Americans, they'll never deliver. And the people who actually can deliver will be dealt out of the game. And then, then we will be weak. Then they will walk over us, at which point you and I, Inspector, will be dead. So we will survive by looking like we can't survive. We will survive by looking like we can't be defeated." Then he had relaxed, the way a tiger relaxes when it's near a tethered goat. "You have your passport? Cash? Well, now you have your instructions, too. I have only one more thing to say: Don't screw up, it might be our last chance."

I remembered very clearly that final injunction. I turned it over in my mind. One of the roof timbers creaked in the cold, recalling something, and that's when I knew it for sure. It wasn't chance that Jeno had been assigned to our care. At two in the morning, there is a certain clarity that creeps around your brain. Tab A, slot B.