He listened. “Alright, as many loaves as you can get. Yes, bakery bread is best. Yes, immediately.” He slammed down the receiver. “I can’t talk to you right now. Meet me tonight.” He wrote an address on a piece of paper and stuffed it in my pocket.

“This time you show up, you hear me? I’m not at your beck and call.” I was at my limit. Five minutes was the maximum I could take, talking to him. “And make sure you pick a spot that won’t be swarming with police.” Whatever he was doing here, it was something that had to be conducted in code. My brother didn’t like bread, not of any kind.

3

“Did anything happen?” The meeting had just ended. It had gone on for a little more than two hours. I spent most of the time watching the pale light from the bank of windows that stretched along the opposite wall. Curious, I thought, the way nature provided for eyelids, but not lids for the ears. Ear lids could have been hidden, so no one would have known. When you shut your eyes, it was obvious to everyone. But ear lids could have been covert. With your eyes open but your ears closed, you could have sat for hours with no one the wiser.

Short of going into a trance, it was impossible to shut out the drone of the negotiations. Their side said something, then our side said something else. Yes, no, not at all, let me repeat, just in case you misunderstand, I’ll say it once again if it would help, we seem to be going over the same ground, perhaps we should take a break. If progress was a rabbit, it was nailed through both feet to the middle of the big table between the two delegations. It was going nowhere.

Mr. Roh closed his notebook. “Happen? We got through another session, and nothing went wrong. That’s in the target area. It got us to lunch, which means we have a three-hour respite from more lectures about how we shouldn’t be faxing blueprints to anyone the Americans don’t happen to like.”

“You’re not telling me we’re going to meet again today?”

“My, oh my, you really were tuned out, weren’t you? We agreed to resume at three o’clock. Meanwhile, we’re supposed to pretend to be contacting Pyongyang for instructions. They’re supposed to pretend they are waiting for us to consider their latest offer. In addition, they graciously invited us to a reception at five thirty. That means more crackers and bits of dry cheese. Don’t worry, we’ll make excuses for your not attending.”

“I’m sure no one will miss me.” In the first blush of battle, I had insisted to the delegation leader I needed to attend all of the functions. Such foolishness.

“True, no one will miss you.”

It was a challenge of sorts, but Mr. Roh was a puppy and I didn’t have time to deal with small dogs. “I’ve got other things to do,” I said. Going to the reception might be the opportunity I needed to pass the message, but then again, probably not. There would be no chance to speak alone to anyone on the American delegation, and I couldn’t very well stand at the table with the little plate of grapes and pass a note saying, “We’re crazy and will go even more nuts if you don’t give us food.” As far as I could tell, Sohn had been right about one thing. There didn’t seem to be any danger of the talks succeeding, even if they lasted several more days. A lot of fixed stares across the table, an occasional frown, and then break for lunch, or coffee, or a trip to the bathroom. During lunch, I could write another report for Sohn. Before that, I needed to take a stroll. First things first. Geneva was boring, but at least there was plenty of air.

I set out down the narrow street in front of the mission, heading to the main road that ran beside the lake. A few reporters camped outside the gate looked up when I walked by. One of them shouted a question in Japanese and the others laughed, but no one followed me. When I reached the lake, I turned and walked along the shore in the direction of town. It would have been nice just to walk without thinking about anything, but you can’t think about nothing if that’s what you want to do. Things started slipping over the barriers and