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