Bamboo And Blood Part 7

"Then don't talk crazy," I said. "When some people get too cold, they become crazed; the words that come from their mouths become crazy. Remember that."

He put his hand to his forehead, a gesture of despair, and waited. "What next?"

I knew right then, he would not live out the winter. At this point it was a matter of will with a lot of people. His was gone, which saddened me for some reason. I didn't know him, but I didn't want him to give up. "Those with heaters will sit in front of them and curse every time the power goes out. Those of us without heaters won't notice the difference," I said. He didn't reply, but he didn't walk away, so I figured he wanted the company. "You know Miss Ban, upstairs?"

"Only her tread. I don't go up there," he said absently.

"You have your own office?" I pointed at his door.

"No, this one is for a team, but everyone else ..."

"They've left."

He shrugged.

"But you stayed."

"They say it's an arduous march; all I do is sit in the dark. I won't get a medal for that."

"I don't suppose you've ever been to Pakistan? Served there? Made a trip?" Might as well start with the biggest shot in the dark and work backward.

"No. What's it to you?"

"Where have you been, then? I'm interested in leading a tour group."

"You ask a lot of questions." At least he could still fight back; maybe it would be enough motivation to stay alive, if he decided to fight.

"A question machine, that's me. I keep asking until I get an answer. Could be the switch is stuck or a connection is loose." Once again he didn't respond, but there was something new, an alertness that had been drained from him only a moment ago. "Where did you serve?" I decided to see how far the conversation would go.

"Middle East. Craziness. Libya. The man's a nut, as far as I can tell."

"You put that in a reporting cable, I suppose. Such forthrightness is much appreciated in this building, I hear."

"Reporting wasn't my job." He smiled, finally, for the first time. "Forthrightness wasn't my area of expertise. My job was making sure the amba.s.sador stayed out of trouble."

"So, did he stay out of trouble?"

"He defected." The words seemed to stick in his throat, and it looked for a moment like I might lose him for good. I nodded for him to go on, and for some reason that seemed to blow up the dam. He didn't need any more encouragement. "The whole emba.s.sy was scared to death when the amba.s.sador disappeared. People were angry with me; they said I should have been more alert, more aware, like I was supposed to know what he was thinking every moment, like I was supposed to be able to read his mind." His face took on some color, and so did his voice. "A security team came out in a hurry; they told us to pretend nothing had happened and to go about our business, but no one could think straight. I was convinced they'd shoot me, take me out to the garden in the back and shoot me, but after a lot of questions they said it wasn't my fault. d.a.m.ned right it wasn't my fault. I'll never know what got into the man."

"That was in Libya?"

He looked at me strangely. "No." He didn't volunteer where, and I wasn't going to ask, not unless I needed to.

"You think they'll send you overseas for another a.s.signment?"

"I don't think they even know I come to the office every day. I read the cables and put them in a file. This file, that file. Like I said, no one cares." The energy was gone again. It made me uneasy to look at him, wondering how long he would last.

PART II.

Chapter One.

"Give me one good reason. Go ahead, just one. I'm trying to do your country some good, so why am I being held prisoner in this hotel?"

"You're not a prisoner." It was exasperating, having to argue with Jeno. He kept pushing even though he knew I wasn't going to budge. "I already told you, feel free to wander around the lobby. Have you done that yet? Or you can go upstairs to the counter where they sell books. Have you seen volume twenty-two yet? Riveting. You can even play pool, if that is possible to do with gloves on."

"You're a strange man, Inspector."

"Thank you, or isn't that a compliment?"

"Surely you want things to get better for your country?"

"Don't worry, we'll survive."

"Oh, I'm sure you will. But I'm not talking survival. I'm talking progress. I'm talking"-he looked around the lobby-"a little more heat." For once, he kept his eyebrows under tight control. "You know what I mean?"

"I don't have to know what you mean. I'm not anyone you need to have a meaningful conversation with. I'm only here to make sure that you stay out of trouble, or better, that trouble stays away from you. That's possible as long as you do what I say. I suggest you just nap under the covers for the next forty-eight hours. Then I'll wave good-bye as you go through the immigration line at the airport. As far as I'm concerned, that will count as progress, you on an airplane, lifting off and flying away."

"Can we walk around the block?"

"You realize how miserable it is outside?"

"I know the temperature, Inspector. You can chain me to your wrist if you want. I'm not going to run away."

I laughed. "Very dramatic. We don't use chains. Okay, let's walk. You have on long underwear? Or are you still relying on those genes of yours for warmth?"

It was much colder outside than it looked, the dead cold that comes on clear, sunny days. There was no wind, but it was hard to move, the cold like an invisible weight, maybe gravity doubled. After we walked past the stamp store, I could see that he was having second thoughts about being outside.

"You had something to say?"

He was breathing hard, gasping from the way the air entered his lungs and filled them with ice, and I wasn't sure he could hear me. He turned his head slowly. "Why would you think that, Inspector?"

"No one is outside today unless they have to be. We don't have to be, so the logical conclusion, and the one of every person who saw us go through the front door, can only be that you want to talk and-more to the point-not be overheard."

"You'll record what I say?"

"No, I don't care what you say. I told you, I'm only supposed to keep you safe, and that means my main concern is that you don't slip on the sidewalk and break your arm. Watch where you're walking."

"Is there a place we can stop to get something warm?"

"As long as we keep moving, you won't freeze solid. I'll have you back in the hotel in twenty minutes, unless you plan to make a long speech."

"In other circ.u.mstances, Inspector, I might have taken my time edging into what I need to say to you. I would have stroked your ego, appealed to your manhood, perhaps. Then I might have looked for some vulnerability, found a way to snap your psychic spine."

"But you've decided not to."

"No, the temperature has given me no choice. I have to get straight to the point."

"Suddenly, I'm doubly not interested. Forget it. Whatever you are going to suggest, forget it."

He shook his head. "Listen closely. I need your a.s.sistance, and in return, you can have whatever you want."

"You're not serious. Only yesterday I told some fool that when it gets cold, people talk crazy. I thought I was making that up, but maybe it's true."

"I'm not trying to recruit you, Inspector. I'm not asking you to betray your country."

"Then why couldn't we stay in the hotel for this?"

"I don't want your brother agencies to know, that's all. There are people trying to prevent me from getting my work done. Some people want me to succeed. Some people don't."

"The latter group seems to be on top; tough for you. It's nothing that concerns me."

"Quite the contrary. You don't live in a bubble. Lots of things concern you, even if you know nothing about them."

I stopped. "Look at that line of trees over there, look at the tops, what do you see?"

"Let's keep moving. We're not talking about trees."

"You may not think so. What do you see?"

"The tops are even."

"Good. Now, look at the trunks, what do you see?"

"Inspector, I'm freezing out here. Can we get to the point?"

"The trunks, what do you see?"

He sighed heavily. "Some of them are on small mounds, some are on the ground, but the tops are all still even. Are we done with this?"

"Even, you say. None too short, none too tall. Now, let's move closer. What do you see?"

"The tops aren't even any more. Can we please go inside? I value my extremities. I'd like to keep all of my fingers." He looked at me oddly, but I pretended not to notice.

"Nice illusion, isn't it? The tops aren't actually even. You can see that with your eyes, but your brain insists on creating a sense of order where none exists. It's an illusion. What you see, and what is there-not the same."

"Have you ever seen pictures of those frozen mammoths in Siberia, Inspector? This is what they must have gone through in their final, excruciating moments. Listening to police-mammoths lecture until they turned to ice blocks."

"Ever since I was small, I noticed the illusion that trees gave, or rather that my eyes did. Things look uniform, only they aren't. We have a need to see uniformity, so we do. Eventually, I began to wonder if reality was someplace other than where I was. Ever have that feeling?"

"I have no feeling left. I think my lungs have begun to ice up."

"No, that doesn't happen for at least another ten minutes, don't worry. If you breathe through your nostrils, it might delay things a few minutes beyond that. In your case"-I looked at his nose-"maybe a little longer."

He groaned audibly. "I think I'm dying."

"The first time I can remember sitting on a train, staring out the window, I watched a farmer walk beside an oxcart along the edge of a field. The ox was plodding, the two of them barely moving. It confused me. The farmer was in sight for a few seconds, and then he was gone. Whose was the reality? His? Mine? Did he disappear? Or did I? Was he still there? Was I? I have that same feeling right now with you. If I look away, maybe you will disappear and not be there when I turn back."

"This is truly stunning, Inspector. How did I get mixed up with the only North Korean alive who imagines he is Spinoza? Stop worrying with metaphysical oxen. Pay more attention to the temperature."

"Don't you ever wonder about reality?"

"Yes! No! Who gives a d.a.m.n about reality? We have to get out of this cold." I didn't move. "Do you know what absolute zero is, Inspector? It's the temperature at which I lose my temper. Forget the big questions right now. There are savage birds circling. We don't have time to worry about theories of existence." No! Who gives a d.a.m.n about reality? We have to get out of this cold." I didn't move. "Do you know what absolute zero is, Inspector? It's the temperature at which I lose my temper. Forget the big questions right now. There are savage birds circling. We don't have time to worry about theories of existence."

I looked up, but there was nothing there. No birds. "Just suppose," I said. "Suppose this isn't reality. Suppose I'm actually somewhere else."

He stared at me oddly again. Then he shrugged. "The cold must be getting to you. Listen to me."

Chapter Two.

Jeno talked, and I listened. He referred to his list of travel requests, said he could do without meeting anyone from the party, emphasized again and again how there were people who wanted him to succeed while he was here and thus it depended on me to help him do that. He mentioned that virtue was its own reward, but added that additional recompense was not beyond question. He threw in a few comments about bikinis and suntan lotion, but then his teeth started chattering so badly I decided we'd better get back to the hotel. At the front entrance, he repeated that there were dangers all around us, birds of prey circling and so forth.

I dismissed this as an exaggeration brought on by exposure to extreme cold. I'd seen it happen in the army when we were on guard duty for extended periods in winter. Frostbite of the brain, someone called it. I stuck around the hotel and kept my eyes open for the next twenty-four hours, nevertheless. I wandered through the lobby; I sat drinking tea; I shuffled into the hotel store and chatted with the salesgirls. I went up to the front door and looked outside. Nothing untoward occurred; nothing even looked about to occur. Day moved to night and back again without a hint of the unusual. There were no signs of bodily harm in preparation. People weren't hanging around the vicinity of the hotel where they shouldn't be. That was easy enough to see because the streets were empty. No one could be inconspicuous in this weather. Just in case, as I left to return to the office, I told the chief security man at the hotel to keep tabs on Jeno, something beyond their normal routine. I didn't completely trust the hotel staff or the BSD men hanging around, but there wasn't much I could do about that. We didn't have enough people left in the office to a.s.sign against phantoms, not new phantoms, anyway. The old phantoms were taking up all available personnel.

When I got back to the office and told Pak what Jeno had said, I thought he would laugh. He didn't. "That's all of it?" he asked.

"Every word." Some of what Jeno told me had been intended only for my ears, or at least that's what he implied. But I don't keep secrets from Pak, not when it comes to work. We don't always put it in the files, but I make sure Pak knows everything I know-almost everything.

"Go back there and sit around," Pak said. "I don't trust those security men, none of them. There's a reason they work at the hotel, and it isn't a good one. All I want is for our guest to leave in one piece. That's not too much to ask, is it, Inspector?"

I'd just spent a full day and night moping around the Koryo, watching the security men watch me. Why would I want to go back?

"The hotel has hot water," Pak said. This was true; they had more than the Foreign Ministry.

"The duty car is acting funny. You don't mind if I take yours?"

"Why should I mind? You take my car all the time." He tossed me the keys. "If you spin out on a patch of ice, don't call me, I don't want to know."

Back at my desk, I opened the top drawer and did a careful inventory. If I was going to sit doing nothing in the hotel, I might as well have a piece of wood that would help me sort through the case. Something pragmatic. Elm was good in that way. Most trees succ.u.mb to nonsense at some point in their lives. They get top-heavy. They forget their roots. Not elms. From beginning to end, they remain stately and pragmatic. I had a piece of elm somewhere.

"Get moving, O!" Pak yelled down the hall. "I don't want to explain to the Minister that something happened to our guest while my inspector was pawing through sc.r.a.ps of wood." I grabbed the first piece I could find. Acacia. Suboptimal for the work at hand, but it would have to do.

When I got to the hotel, I spotted Jeno sitting on a bench on the second floor. He waved but didn't make a move to join me. Well, I thought, if the molehill won't come to Mohammed.