Inspector O! Attention! Learning experience! All you can do is check for scars, or dings in the windshield. That’s where lessons usually come, at 80 kph on a bad road at night with no moon.”
“You sound like my father.”
“I wouldn’t know.” We walked past the small grove of oak trees that still clung to some of last year’s leaves. There is nothing to recommend old leaves; they give nothing to a tree except the mournful appearance of days past. Once, when I mentioned to my grandfather that it was odd how oak trees clung to their leaves, he snorted. “Why blame the trees? Oaks are just too kind, that’s all. Not like maples.” He’d pointed his cane at a maple tree. “Greediest damned tree you’ll find.”
“You keep looking behind us,” I said to Mr. Roh. “Don’t worry. No one is following.” Which was almost certainly not true. I couldn’t go out without someone trying to stay a respectable distance back, pretending to be birdwatching, or window-shopping, or consulting a bus schedule and wandering off curbs. But the Swiss didn’t need to follow me into this park; I’d already figured that out. They had the area under constant watch. Little cameras disguised as acorns, maybe, and too bad for the squirrel who ate one. If anyone was lurking, it was the Man with Three Fingers. I didn’t think he would bother with Mr. Roh, though, unless he thought he could use the youngster to club me senseless. Roh might have been followed by someone from the mission, but I’d be able to spot them soon enough.
“Where are you from?” It was an uncomplicated question, I thought, nothing he would shy away from answering.
“I was born in Pyongyang.” That meant he had seen the city in better days, in the 1970s, when the streetcars ran and the lights worked.
“You get into the countryside much?” Not as simple; there were jagged edges on a question like that.
“My mother’s family is from Chongjin.” He paused. “I was there just before coming here. My uncle was sick.” Sick. That meant he was dying of hunger, but no one would say that, certainly not this kid who was starting to wonder what I was doing, regretting he’d come out to meet me, still weighing what he said to make sure he didn’t say too much.
“How were things in Chongjin?”
Mr. Roh looked at me carefully. This was the danger point, and he knew it. The question wasn’t complicated; it could be deadly. If he told me what he’d really seen and if he’d misjudged me, he was finished.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m still not planning to write anything down.”
“I won’t soon forget what I saw.”
“Don’t, don’t forget. You understand me? Don’t ever forget.”
We fell into silence again, standing under trees with dead leaves in a dying afternoon.
“You want me to tell you something about the delegation, is that is it?” He shoved his hands in his pockets and thrust out his chin. “That’s the game? Always games and countergames. I get tired of them.”
“But you came out here anyway. You do have a conspiratorial frame of mind after all. I was beginning to worry.” I wondered when he would get around to mentioning the delegation. I didn’t want to raise it. I wanted him to open that door.
“Conspiratorial? No, just realistic. People criticize the Foreign Ministry for being unrealistic, but they don’t understand. We know what’s what.”
“Maybe you do, maybe you don’t.”
“We know plenty, trust me.”
“Like for instance.”
“Like you can be sure the delegation leader understands perfectly well what the game is.”
“Game? Whose game?”
“These talks we’re in. They’re part of the game at home. Some people want us to sell off the missiles to the Americans for money and food. Other people don’t want us to do anything at all, just stall. And then there is a group that wants us to pretend we’re making progress so another bidder will get involved.”
“Really? Another bidder? Who would that be?”
He shrugged. Maybe he didn’t know about the contacts with the Israelis, but it was more likely he did.
“Sure,” I said. “You can’t tell someone from the Ministry of Public Security, because it’s a matter of security. Because you wouldn’t want to get yourself into trouble, would you? Not you, or your family.” It was a lousy thing to say. I wasn’t going to threaten his family, even if that’s what he thought.
I saw him damp down a powerful surge of anger. He waited to speak until it had subsided,