Someone must have taken her to the airport.”
“Well, she didn’t walk there, that’s for sure. The airport is too far away. But no one in the mission drove her. I looked at their logs.”
“Nobody bothered to find out how she got there?”
“The security man told me it was on his list of things to do. It’s a long list, he said.”
“What was she doing in the city when she wasn’t in the office?”
“Either no one knew or they wouldn’t tell me. People said she went for walks in the park in the center of town.”
“Not alone, she didn’t. She’d be petrified to go out by herself in that city.”
“Could be, though if she took after her father, I don’t think she had a lot of fear. You think she knew someone there?”
“Don’t you?”
“I’m not sure if she already knew someone, or maybe she met them by accident.”
“But she knew someone.”
“That’s what it looked like, but I wasn’t going to dig around in something like that. I had no authorization; the orders were a joke. Anyway, I didn’t know the territory. The main thing is, she didn’t act like a normal Foreign Ministry wife. And if she didn’t act like one in New York, I’ll bet she didn’t do it in Pakistan, either.”
“You were wrong.”
“This was useful?”
“No. It was more than a couple of sentences.” We stopped at a doorway. Pak knocked. There was no answer.
“It’s dark, they must have left. Let’s go back to the office.” By now I realized Pak was right, it was a crazy cold day to be outside.
“Don’t be so impatient, Inspector.” He knocked again, two taps; he waited, then one more.
The door opened a crack, barely wide enough for us to slip through. “Hurry up, you’ll let all the heat out.” A woman’s voice. Then laughter. Inside was nearly as cold as it was on the street. The room held a few small tables; two men sat drinking morosely. The woman who had shouted at us appeared. “All the heat!” She laughed again. “You’re welcome to sit as long as you want. If you want to drink, you can do that. No food, though. The shipment of twigs didn’t arrive.” At this, one of the men laughed, and the other stared into his glass.
“Good, here we are, warm and cozy.” Pak looked at the candle on the table. He had his jacket zipped all way the up. “Anything hot,” he said to the woman. “Hot water with sawdust sprinkled on it, I don’t care. As long as it’s hot. Bring it, and then leave us alone.”
The woman disappeared. When she returned, she had a tray with two bowls of soup and a pot of weak tea. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’s as hot as it’s going to get. If I had some fish, it would be fish soup. But I found some salt, don’t ask me where, and that makes it seem like there’s fish in it. No charge for the leaves.” She put the tray down and disappeared again; this time she closed the door behind her.
We finished the meal quickly and in silence. The two drinkers stared at us. Pak reached in his coat for cigarettes. “Tell me a story, Inspector, about a faraway place.” He lit two cigarettes and gave me one. “Weave a magic carpet, take us to the land of fallen women and beggars. And if you can’t take us there, take us to New York.”
2
“It wasn’t much to see.” I looked over at the drinkers. They turned their attention back to their glasses. “Very simple geography. It’s on an island, like Yanggak-to, only bigger.” I waited.
“Three and a half kilometers wide,” Pak said. “Or did I already mention that?”
“It sits between two rivers, both broad enough to keep the population from moving back and forth except for the bridges. There are a few boats, but not many that I saw; maybe because of the cold weather. The wind was fierce, and there was snow piled so high in some places I could barely walk across the street. The whole place is pretty flat, though they haven’t leveled it completely. Some streets are steep going down to the river on the east side.”
“Like San Francisco.”
“I don’t know, I’ve never been there. I didn’t think I knew anyone who had.”
Pak hummed a few notes.
“What is that?”
“Called ‘Gone to San Francisco’ or something. It was on the radio when we were out on operations sometimes, and we’d sing it as a joke