"Why bother? They could see you were in no mood to talk."
"No one was, believe me. They were nervous, real edgy. The whole way back they wouldn't look at me, not even at each other."
"Now your dead teammate shows up again. In pursuit of this Israeli who tells us he is a Swiss Jew."
"What makes you think he's Israeli?"
"What makes you think he's not?"
"His mother is Hungarian," I said lamely, "that's why his name is Jeno. It's not Italian, by the way."
"Who cares about his mother? He's an Israeli as sure as I'm Korean, and he was up here in the cold where there isn't a camel for a thousand kilometers."
"I don't think they have camels in Israel."
"You know what I mean. He was way out of his territory, and so is your old friend Mun if he's come back from the dead. You think it's strange?"
"No, more like fearful symmetry."
Pak looked thoughtful. "Your phrase?"
"Borrowed."
Chapter Two
The weather got better for a few days, not so cold, and finally, a lot of sun in the mornings, though the sun was still weak, like a dying man's eyes. Every afternoon the clouds came in, but that didn't matter much because it got dark early this time of year, so it wasn't as if the afternoons were much use anyway. Pak was jumpy. He drifted down to my office every couple of hours. Half the time, he'd just stand there, looking into space. Sometimes, he'd ask if everything was going smoothly. Nothing more specific than that. I pretended not to know what he was talking about. I just said, "Fine, everything's fine."
That was true, if a meeting in the Sosan with the long-dead Mun could be construed as "fine;" if listening to Mun recite a litany of complaints and threats from the special section could come under the rubric of "fine;" if "fine" could be stretched to include a final warning that I should consider myself as being on notice that "some people" were waiting for one more incident to bring down the hammer and shatter my status as the grandson of a Hero of the Republic. This sort of thing didn't bother me too much. It just wasn't what I would normally label "fine." But I also didn't want Pak to know. He had enough to worry with. This was my business, old business, unfinished business. If there was a problem, it was mine to solve.
Pak's too frequent visits went on for several days. It got on my nerves. Someone constantly asking you if everything is all right, it can get wearing. Pak didn't think things were fine, I could tell. He thought things were going to end up in a train wreck. Pak knew plenty, he had good sources, and they must have been warning him. After being surprised once, he was going to make sure it didn't happen again. He must have dug up every contact he ever had to check what was going on. He wouldn't come out and say anything though. That wasn't how he did things. Each time, after I told him things were fine, he'd shake his head and walk back to his office, clucking his tongue.
It was a little curious that he never asked about my meeting in the Sosan coffee shop. I figured there must be a reason he didn't want to know, something more than his well-honed instinct against delving into things that couldn't bring anything more than another basketful of bad news to an already bad situation. If he asked, when he asked, I already knew what I'd tell him.
"So, what happened at the Sosan between you and your no-longer-dead friend?" He made sure to be looking out my window when he finally asked, so I couldn't see the expression on his face.
"Nothing." I'd practiced saying it out loud. It still didn't sound convincing.
"Is that a fact? You just sat there and laughed about old times and drank hot water?"
"I certainly didn't laugh."
"And him?"
"He sneered, mostly." Which was true. "I still can't figure out why he wanted the meeting." Also true.
"Not good." Pak had come away from the window and was rearranging a pile of papers on my desk. "Whatever he's up to, it's not good, we can assume that, but what else? He must have asked you a few questions."
"That's what I was expecting, questions. At least some probing for what we knew about the foreigner. But no, nothing like that. There is one thing, though. He said he wanted to get in touch with some of the people from our operation, the one he and I were on when everything went wrong." I glanced at my desk. Pak had put everything in two neat piles. I'd known where every piece of paper was before. The latest Ministry reports had been on the edge of the desk closest to the window, in roughly the order they came into my office; interrogation reports were more or less in order of priority along the the opposite edge of the desk, nearest the door; laterally filed field reports from other sectors in the city were pretty much everywhere else. "You might as well take those piles to your office," I said. "I'll never be able to find anything anymore."
"Why? Why did he want to get in touch with those people?"
"How should I know? I told him I had no idea where anyone was, and he sneered."
"Did he ask for another meeting?"
"No. But I'm sure of one thing."
"And what is that, Inspector?"
"I'll bet we haven't seen the last of him."
2
Winter was never busy. In bad weather, people stayed off the streets if they could. The worse the weather, the more they stayed indoors, even if they had no heat. We may have been the only ones in the city who were glad when it snowed heavily. Fewer people outside, less chance for trouble-everybody knew it. Anything that happened on the street pretty quickly got thrown our way. But if something went wrong in an apartment, it was rare for us to be called. Even if people phoned, Pak's inclination was to tell them to settle it themselves. Have the neighborhood committee deal with it, he'd say and hang up. The neighborhood committees liked that sort of thing; it bolstered their sense of importance and gave them another reason to meddle. Occasionally, one of them would write a nice note to the Ministry pointing out Pak's "good judgment." The note would be put in his file, and that would keep the Ministry off his neck for a few months. That was fine by me. If the Ministry was off his neck, it was easier for him to keep them off mine.
Just to keep a hand in things, I'd walk through my sector a couple of times a week in winter, even on icy days. Mornings, there would often be a street gang out clearing sidewalks. At least a couple of people would be working; the rest liked to loll around and chatter. The girls fixed their scarves when they saw me. The boldest ones sang out, "?lo, Inspector, it must be quiet in your office today." In years past, their eyes would sparkle. Their cheeks ruddy with cold, they would whisper among themselves for a moment, and then one of them, the boldest, would walk up and say, "We've got tea across the way. Stop by and we'll bring it down to you." She'd wave toward an apartment house on the corner. "Or you can wait inside," something that always brought more laughter.
"No. Thank you, but no," I'd say. "These sidewalks need more work, don't you think?"
And one of the men, sweating with exertion, would look up and shout, "What are you girls doing there? Get your shovels working, why don't you, instead of standing around bothering the police. Let him go about his business, you hear?" He'd nod to me and then go back to chipping the ice. None of them would pay any attention to him.
But this winter things were different. The work gangs were smaller, and nobody spoke when I walked by. Sometimes, one or two would follow me with dull eyes, too weak or dispirited to move their heads. I had the feeling I was moving past ghosts.
On rare occasions, I drove over to the university. I didn't like being there. Schools belonged to another security unit, not even to the Ministry, and in those days it made me nervous to be on someone else's territory. But Pak had worked out an understanding to let us peek in from time to time. When Pak needed an understanding, he could usually get it. We should have access to the campus, he'd say, just to keep an eye on things. Just in case the situation started drifting toward some unknown event, a potential trigger. No one would talk about it openly, and the Ministry wouldn't put anything on paper, but we all knew what was happening, and we all knew that the students might get in front.