Bamboo and Blood (28 page)

His hand was on my shoulder. “Still sore? I can get you a nice Indonesian masseuse if you like.” He moved around the bench and sat down beside me.

The Portuguese must be fully employed. “You seem obsessed with Indonesian girls.”

“No, but I was hoping you might be.”

“These days my only obsession is for some time to think. Can’t a man ruminate in peace? I suppose I would also like a few answers, but that is probably too much to ask. Just time to speculate will do.”

“An airplane ride will give you the opportunity to sit and think, Inspector. Why don’t we drive you to the airport and put you on a plane? Anywhere you want to go, just tell me, as long as it’s away from here.
Your ambassador also wants you to leave, I hear. Maybe I should let him pay for the ticket.”

“How can it be that I thought things were simple in Switzerland? I pictured cows wearing bells, and girls on hillsides waving at the wild-flowers.”

“Fantasy. It’s a very complex place, especially because people from the outside won’t leave us alone.”

“Alone? You don’t even begin to know what it’s like not to be left alone. When was the last time your country was destroyed, M. Beret?”

He sat pondering this. “Destroyed? Let me think. The Romans were here and chased the Helvetii; Napoleon stuck his nose in briefly; we’ve fought some battles with this duke and that one, but, no, I’d have to say we’ve largely avoided destruction. This city”—he swept his hand toward the buildings across the lake—“is a monument of stability. It’s been here for over two thousand years, did you know?” I didn’t know.

At that moment, with M. Beret pointing at a city whose only skyline was the oversized signs of jewelers, it became clear to me. This was the one chance I was going to get to pass on what Sohn had sent me to say. I might not have as good an opportunity to talk to anyone else who would be sure to understand. M. Beret was a man who listened carefully; he’d yet to ask me about lost socks or to comment on my ties. He would write down what I told him, and make sure it filtered out to the right places. He’d get it to liaison officers, and they would pass it around, if they knew what they were doing. It would end up in faraway in-boxes, just as Sohn planned.

“Good fortune shines on you,” I said. “Be grateful. My land is not so lucky.” As I heard myself say the words, I could barely believe my ears. This was exactly what my grandfather would say. His lectures on the sad history of Korea—overrun, bullied, forced to kneel—always filled me with rage at his self-pity. Now I was saying exactly the same thing. “We were destroyed, but don’t imagine we intend for it ever to happen again.”

“The Swiss are, as you know, Inspector, neutral. There is no reason to think of me as your enemy.”

“Neutral? That is for the rich and fortunate. We have no time for neutrality. We are weak and poor.”

M. Beret said nothing.

“That’s what you think, I know, even if you won’t say it. Don’t worry. It’s alright, we know how the world sees us. But we are not as weak as people think—or hope. What’s more, we have no room left to retreat, not a millimeter. Do people want us to starve? Then they will see how desperate we can be. We will not go quietly, let me assure you. We will not starve in the shadows and die quietly out of sight.”

“You are hardly in position to threaten anyone, I would think.”

“Don’t be too sure.” That did it. That registered with him. I could see that he was already composing the memo in his head. I added an extra line for him to use. “No one should be too sure about us in this situation.”

“There are people who say your country is on the verge of collapse.”

“There are people who don’t know their backsides from a hole in the ground.”

M. Beret took a small appointment calendar from his pocket. He had one. The delegation leader had one. The entire world but me seemed to have a little appointment book. It was some sort of mark of sophistication. If you needed an appointment calendar, it meant you had appointments, which meant you were important, called upon, connected, in charge of your life. I needed to get several, one for each pocket, at least.

“This is my appointment book, Inspector. For the past two weeks or so it has been mostly blank. Do you know why? Because I have been solely focused, obsessively focused, on watching you. No luncheon dates, no dinner invitations, nothing but you. My friends think I am having an affair. Can you believe it? My entire existence is consumed. Not counting our brief stroll in Coppet, the only break I have had was the drive to Cha-monix, and that was at night when there was nothing to see. Nothing! I couldn’t even stop for dinner.” Ah, M. Beret, I thought, you lying bastard. You had dinner with Jenö that night, whereas I had nothing to eat. “Why don’t you take a trip to Montreux tomorrow? It will do us both good. You can visit the castle, ponder the dungeon, maybe. We can have lunch in a nice restaurant, separate tables for the sake of propriety, but it will be pleasant nonetheless.”

“Castles? You struck me as someone interested solely in bulldozer parts.”

“Of course, that’s what this is all about, don’t misunderstand. I know it, and so do you.” He sighed and put away the notebook. “And so, we can be sure, does our mutual friend Jenö.”

“I may be busy and thus difficult to follow for the next several days. I’ve been making it easy for you, but I do know how to slip a tail. Why don’t you take time off? Go have dinner, clear your mind, read a book.”

“A tempting proposition, Inspector. But I must decline. Do your best. I’ll see you when I see you. Incidentally, if you like jazz, there are some good clubs around. Just ask.”

On arriving in Geneva, Sohn had gone directly to the mission. Then, when it was still early, he came to see me. He was waiting across the street from my hotel when I stepped outside. I made a mental note to tell M. Beret to put a bench there. I don’t like guests having to stand around. As soon as Sohn was sure I’d seen him, he started walking up the street, which according to the simple code we’d agreed on at our last meeting in Pyongyang meant he wanted me to walk in the other direction. The “other direction” in this case was down the hill toward town. If things went according to plan, he would double back and find me, assuming I could remember the prearranged pattern I was supposed to follow. Yesterday had been the third of March; that meant this was a morning for threes. Three blocks, then a right turn. Another three blocks, then a left turn. Three more blocks, then another right. It didn’t seem to me to be the best technique for a foreign city, since we could just as easily end up in the lake with the swans, but it would have to do under the circumstances. I didn’t know where all the turns would put us exactly; wherever it was, once he was there, it was up to Sohn to decide whether he wanted to go ahead with a meeting. If he saw something he didn’t like, he would call it off. At some point, M. Beret would get a report that I had been out walking, but I doubted his people would know for sure who Sohn was for a couple of days at least. The Israelis, who were keeping tabs on me even though I couldn’t figure out how, might imagine that I had sent their message and that Sohn had come running. If they
wanted to meet with him, it was up to them to arrange the contact. I was through playing messenger boy.

My three-block dance led finally to a street with small shops, a playground, and a bar called Sunflower. The door was propped open with a box, so I went in and waited. The man behind the bar told me in French, then in German, and finally in English that they didn’t open until 5:00 P.M. I shrugged. He shrugged back. I sat down on one of the barstools to wait. Five minutes later Sohn popped in. The man behind the bar started to explain again that the bar was not open, but Sohn ignored him and walked to a table in the back.

“Too bad,” I said. “You just missed my brother.”

“Is that so?” Sohn turned around and pantomimed drinking something to the man behind the bar.

“The place is closed,” I said. “We’re lucky if he doesn’t kick us out.”

The man walked over with two glasses of beer and set them down, not very gently, on the table. “That will be all,” Sohn said, in French. I kept most of my composure.

“You speak French?” I asked when we were alone again.

“Of course I know French, Inspector, doesn’t everyone in the civilized world?” He held up his glass and studied it closely. “This beer is very Swiss, I’m afraid. Don’t drink it unless you have to.” He took a sip and grimaced. “Now, about your brother. You saw him off?”

“No. He told me he was leaving.”

“Well, he didn’t go anywhere. He doesn’t have tickets, and he doesn’t have reservations. I think he still has shirts at the laundry, you know, those blue shirts he likes. Surprised? He lied to you.”

“You want me to get his shirts for you?”

“No. Stay away from him and anything he has touched. He has things to do, and apparently he hasn’t done them yet. I’m pretty sure he has an appointment to meet someone. That needs to go ahead. You’ve done your job.”

“What job is that?”

“You rattled him. That can be fatal for someone like your brother. He can’t afford that sort of emotion. He has too many enemies.”

“We argued, if that’s what you mean. That’s what we usually do when we bump into each other. I don’t think it rattled him at all.”

“I think it did. I think he’s off stride. At this point, it’s a question of waiting to see how much. I’m almost sure he’s operating on his own right now. When things are still small like this, I might be able to stop them. After that, the decisions are out of reach. People take sides, they draw big pictures. They get budgets.”

“Perhaps you could be more cryptic for me.”

“Later. We’ve got work to do.”

“Me? My work here is done.”

“Before I went to your hotel, I paid a call on the ambassador. He was surprised to see me.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Actually, I thought he was going to have a stroke. No such luck. When he could finally talk, he picked up the phone and told his aide that they were leaving immediately for Zurich. A meeting, he said. I saluted him from the front steps as his car went out the gate, but I don’t think he was mollified. So I went back to his office to write him a note.”

“You went into his office?”

“I sat at his desk, actually. He shouldn’t leave some of those documents lying around like that. The wrong people might read them. Apparently, the situation is fluid.”

“Are we back to cryptic? Because if we are, I’m going to my hotel.”

“Before that, you’ll have to do some shopping. There are new instructions from the Center for everyone working overseas. They can be summarized as follows: Collect vegetable seeds and food, food, food. Fertilizer if it is to be had, but the first priority is food. So is the second priority. And so is the third. On ships, on trucks, on bicycles—it doesn’t make any difference. For the moment, we grovel, we pander, we lick the boots of anyone who will deliver. You won’t believe the catchphrase that excuses this madness.” Sohn took a pen out of his pocket. “You need a pen?”

“That’s the ambassador’s. I saw him use it. You took the ambassador’s pen.”

“Don’t worry, I left him his pencils, most of them, anyway. What you need to worry about is the new instructions.”

“What happened to ‘crazy’?” I asked. “The last time you and I spoke, that was to be my message. It was delivered, incidentally.” I didn’t mention to whom.

“Scratch ‘crazy.’ According to the new, improved thinking, it will only scare people off. ‘Quietly desperate’—that’s where things are now. If you already told people we’re crazy, you’ll have to go back and undo it.” He unscrewed the pen and looked at the parts. ‘They’ll eat us up,” he said absently. “This is exactly what the wild dogs at our door have been waiting for. It’s suicide, admitting we’re weak.”

“I’m going to ask you a question.”

“Let me ask you one first. Your brother—do you know what a menace he is, Inspector? People like him think their time has come. The Center is distracted. Every day there is more to worry about. I think we may actually be coming out of the worst of it, but there is still plenty that can go wrong. Your brother and his friends were busy last year when the sky was darkest. They used the time well, and I’m a year behind. It might as well be a lifetime.”

“Do you want me to nod knowingly, Sohn? Or will you tell me what you are talking about first?”

“Imagine this. They’ve been digging, and planning, and putting together the pieces. A piece here. A piece there.” He moved the parts of the pen around on the table. “In a month or two, if they are left alone, they’ll be ready to walk into the Center and present what they’ve done. Then it will be too late. They’ll lay out plans, sketch out scenarios. And at that point, when I am asked what I think, it’s too late. Should I say: ‘No! Don’t do everything possible to protect the Fatherland.’ Or how about: ‘No! It is dangerous to go down that path, it risks everything we’ve accomplished, it might explode in our face.’”

I frowned. Sohn was careful with his imagery; he didn’t make mistakes.

“At that point, the only answer I can offer is, ‘Good for them. Hooray for them. All honor to them.’ Your brother will be rewarded. He’ll swagger, he’ll go to the parties, he’ll put his filthy fat hands—” Sohn stopped. “Forgive me.”

“No, go ahead, say whatever you want. He isn’t my brother anymore.”

I thought Sohn would bark, but he didn’t. He hadn’t barked once the whole time.

“You have friends here who are anxious to meet,” I said.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll drink while you talk.”

“There isn’t much else to say. I assume that with your arrival, I’ve become extraneous. You’ll take over, and I can go home.”

“Nothing of the sort. There is still a lot to be done.” Sohn put his glass down and leaned toward me. Surely now, a bark. “There are things you can do that I can’t.”