what he wanted me to do. Attract attention. From the two cars parked at either end of the street, it appeared I was succeeding. I decided not to go back to my room yet. I’d seen some beech trees that had been cut down a few streets away; maybe there would be a few chips I could pick up to bring home.

It was hard to find beechwood in Pyongyang. One year my grandfather went to great lengths to have some shipped from Bulgaria. I had imagined a whole trainload would pull up to our door, but there were only a few boards. He treasured them. The day they arrived, we celebrated as if there had been an addition to our family. For months they sat in the house, carefully leaning against the wall in the room where my grandfather sat and wrote letters. I asked if I could help saw them. The old man shook his head. It was much too soon to talk about such things, he said. The boards needed to get accustomed to the place; they weren’t used to the climate, to the way we talked, to our dreams. The wood had to feel rested and comfortable, then it would be ready. Finally, on a spring afternoon nearly four months after our “guests” arrived, he said it was time. When I asked what he was going to make out of the boards, he looked surprised. “How would I know? The wood and I have to decide together, don’t we? Don’t think you can just impose your will on things. Don’t listen to this talk you’re hearing these days about man being at the center of creation. Wood doesn’t know about politics. And thank goodness for that.” It turned out that the beech wanted to be part of a chair. I only sat in it once, before my grandfather gave it away, a present to a friend in the army, a man with a long title and a nice office. When I went to visit him a few years after my grandfather died, he had disappeared, as had the chair.

The two beech trees had been cleared away. From the pale light of the single streetlight, I could see a little sawdust on the road, but nothing else. I walked down the hill again to town, figuring I’d sit in a quiet bar until it was time to go meet my brother. If anyone was following me, they would just have to wander around a bit or find a place to relax until I set off for Coppet. I wasn’t sure where Coppet was, but I wasn’t going to let my brother know that. It would give him too much satisfaction, dictating directions to me. It was bad enough he just assumed that I would accept a summons to meet him someplace out of town at 1:00 A.M. The only thing worse was that he was right.

I had been given a pocket map of Geneva before I left Pyongyang; I’d check it as soon as I found a place to sit down. It was an old map made in Hungary. Sohn had handed it to me with an odd look on his face. “What makes them think you’ll find this of any use,” he said, “I’ll never understand. It’s probably what Geneva looked like during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Let’s hope it’s better than nothing.”

A woman in high heels, spikes that could go through your heart, passed me when I turned onto a main street in search of a café. She was blond, Russian, a face like a fox, though I don’t imagine a fox, even in a leather skirt, looks that way from the back. When she walked up to a man standing on the corner, it was clear they knew each other already. He put his arm around her waist. She drew away, just a tiny gesture, then settled against him. She doesn’t like him, I thought. Maybe she’ll murder him tonight, with those stiletto heels.

Chapter Two

Coppet was quiet and dark. A figure in a beret and a belted coat came out of a doorway and fell into step with me. “Lonely?”

It was M. Beret. I couldn’t see his face, but the voice, even with just that one word, was unmistakable.

“No, not if you’re not,” I said. I kept walking.

“It would be better if you stayed in your plain little hotel, don’t you think? Things can happen to people at this hour, even in Switzerland.”

“I felt restless, that’s