After that, the phone rang a couple of times a year-it was usually an operator ostensibly running a line check and not interested in speaking more than a few words. I knew what this really was, a routine check to make sure I hadn’t disappeared. As further insurance, in case I fooled with the phone or learned to throw my voice really well, they put the guard shack on the road at the foot of the mountain. It was a waste of everybody’s time-the phone and the guards-but time was what they thought they had plenty of, and someone in the Ministry had decided they had nothing better to spend it on than me. When the road was open, food came once a month in the old truck. Twice a year, on the big holidays, a Ministry driver brought two bottles of liquor.
“Happy day, Inspector,” he’d say, stretching his legs and looking in all four directions at the view.
“I’m not an inspector anymore.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not a delivery boy, but I drove all the way up here to give you those bottles, so sometimes we have to be what we aren’t, I guess.”
4
“First of all.” I pushed the folder to one side. “Let’s get something straight. I’m not an inspector. I resigned, handed in all documentation, badges, identification, keys, and privileges attached thereto.” I checked to see if the mean stare across the table was still running; it was. “Second, maybe you can read in a dark room like this, but I can’t, not anymore. It’s the eyes.”
“Perhaps you’d rather be somewhere the lights are on twenty-four hours a day.” The staring man spoke up. He was younger than the other two, seemed comfortable in a dark room at a long table. I changed my mind. Probably not military, but I couldn’t figure out where he fit. He looked too intelligent to be SSD. When they stared, their jaws went slack. “It’s very tiring, I hear, having lights all the time,” he said. His voice had a lulling cadence. “Then again, with constant lighting, you could read whenever you wanted.”
The man at the end of the table stirred. The others glanced at him quickly, but he only looked idly into space, as if they weren’t there.
The military man in the center frowned to himself. If I had been interrogating him, I would have said he was trying not to show how angry he was. The frown was covering something, but he wouldn’t let it out. Finally, he pointed at me. “Go through that folder tonight. Study it carefully again in the morning when you wake up. Read through it as many times as you want during the rest of the day, in the sunlight. We’ll meet here again tomorrow, after dinner.” This was an order; it made him feel better to be giving orders, you could tell.
“I can’t, regrettably,” I said.
The younger man leaned forward. “You have another appointment?” There was a sneer hanging on the edge of the voice. I revised my estimate-he was definitely SSD. Sneering was something they all picked up after a while, like diphtheria.
“No, I’m returning home. I don’t, as it happens, have a change of clothes.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw the man at the end of the table smile, almost in spite of himself. “Maybe later, Inspector,” he said so quietly that the others had to strain to hear. “But for now, you’re needed here.”
I could sense the discomfort across the table as soon as he spoke. There was nothing overt, no clearing of throats or tightening of lips, but the temperature in the room went down suddenly, and they sat like ice figures. It didn’t seem to bother the man on the end. He lit another cigarette and leaned back in his chair, very much at ease. All right, I thought to myself, time to leave. I whisked the folder off the desk and stood up.
“An honor,” I said, and nodded. The nod was a good touch, I thought. It came almost automatically. Social grace was trickling back into my system. “I’ll study this closely.”
As I backed out of the room, the general in the center closed his eyes and slowly exhaled. The other two, sitting motionless beside him, didn’t seem to be breathing at all.
5
The little man outside the room was holding my jacket. Li was waiting in the elevator. The girl with the white gloves looked at the carpet.
“As usual, you didn’t take my advice, I can tell,” Li said.
“As usual, it wasn’t very good advice.”
As we retraced our steps, I remembered it had been a long time since I’d eaten. “You hungry?”
“No, but I’ll watch.”
“Don’t worry; I’ll buy.”
Li shook his head. “At these prices, you’ll change your mind, believe me.”
We drove back up the ramp out of the garage into the night. “So find a cheap restaurant. I probably owe you. Where am I staying, by the way?”
Li took a piece of paper from his pocket. “You’re an honored guest, O. Anything you want. Wine, women, color TV.”
We drove a few blocks and then turned parallel to the river.
“That bad, huh?”
“I told you.”
“So you did. Who was that character at the end of the table?”
The car pulled up to a building that was spilling oceans of electricity into a neon sign. “Here’s your hotel,” Li said. He’d heard my question; he wasn’t going to answer. “Pleasant dreams. You can call room service if you’re hungry. Put it on the room tab.”
“I walk in, they smile and hand me a key?”
“We don’t use keys anymore. Electronic locks. The room is stocked with liquor. Drink it up. Watch TV as much as you want; lots of stations from lots of places. It may amuse you.” He looked at me, funnylike.
“What?”
“You ever heard of Rip van Winkle?”
“Dutchman, by the sound of it.”
“Went to sleep, woke up in a different world.”
“Sounds like a good idea. I’ll set the alarm for five years from now.”
“Don’t bother; it’s already here.”
6
The desk clerks were expecting me, three of them, very bright eyed. The lobby was bright. The colors of the chairs were bright. The whole thing gave me a headache.
“I’m told I have a room waiting,” I said, and looked at the carpet, red with orange fish dancing across a shimmering sea.