Once, after my brother had returned to school, the old man went out to his workroom and didn't come back, even though night had fallen. I found him sitting by the light of a single candle, holding a beautiful piece of wood he had been working on for weeks. As I stepped inside the room, he broke the wood across his knee. "Which piece should we burn first?" he asked me. I had no idea what to reply.
After my brother had disappeared outside the wall that surrounded the park, I set off for the lake. I walked, not noticing where I was or what I saw. I must have gone across one of the bridges, because the next thing I knew, I was all the way around on the western side of the lake, sitting on a bench that shared a patch of grass with a small linden tree. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a man jogging down the path. Barely a meter away, he stopped to tie his shoe. I knew what was going to happen next. He sat down beside me. "Nice day," he said. "You jog? Good way to get exercise and see the sights."
These people had no shame. I started to get up.
"Whoa, I didn't mean any offense," he said. "Just trying to make conversation. You look a little lonely, sitting here."
I sat back down. "Let's save ourselves a lot of time. I'll give you my answer first. No. I'll throw in an extra one for emphasis. No. And I have plenty in reserve. I brought a suitcase full of them and put several in my pocket this morning. No. Now, go ahead and ask your question."
"What question? I told you, I was jogging. I'm here on a vacation."
"Good for you. Myself, I'm here to dedicate a memorial to the Heroes of the Revolution."
"Funny man. Look, you may not know it, but there are a lot of people about to crawl up your ass. Here's my phone number." He put a piece of paper on the bench next to me. "If you get nervous or decide you want a change of scenery, just call and ask for Mr. Walbenhurst."
"Some name. I don't think I can remember it. Is it real?"
"Everything is real, Inspector. And everything is possible." He leaned over and checked his laces again. "Well, write if you get work," he smiled. "That's what my mama used to tell me."
The woman sitting three benches away waited until he jogged past before she stood up. Nothing left to chance, I said to myself. Which is why nothing was possible.
3
The talks were on and then off and then on again for the next week. Their side read talking points, we read ours, then we all stood up and stretched. Then we sat down again to read the same talking points, and to hear theirs all over again. Finally, on a rainy afternoon, the opportunity arose to pass the message that Sohn had given me. The man I had selected as the target walked up to me.
"Nice tie," he said. "Where did you get it?"
"My tie?" It wasn't what I had considered as the opening for slipping in the assassin's blade.
"You seem to have a good collection. That one looks Italian." He pointed to his own tie. "Mine are shabby by comparison, I'm afraid. I used to have one I bought in the Paris airport, but I can't find it anymore. Does that happen to you? Ties disappearing. I have the same problem with socks."
What problem? Were socks a problem? Were we exporting socks to rogue states?
"It looks like we're going to be here for another week or so. Why don't we all get together on the weekend, maybe go for a drive in the mountains? We could get a small bus. Let me know." He smiled. "Nice talking to you."
4
The idea of meeting the daughter of a Turk who worked for Israeli intelligence was not mine. I resisted up to a point, but I do not believe in taking hopeless stands. Dilara wanted to do it; she insinuated herself against me in ways that rapidly made my opposition untenable. I'd been to her father's cafe almost every day, and every time she served me tea and little sweets and long ravishing looks that made my heart pound on my rib cage with a fierce insistence. Thursday afternoon, during the lunch break at the talks, I hurried over to the cafe. Her father was away. She came outside and walked with me to my hotel.
"I'm not going up to your room," she said. "If my father caught me in your room, he'd slice you to ribbons. He doesn't trust you."
"Me? What have I done to deserve such suspicion?"
"Nothing. You're Korean, that's all, and he has bad memories of your country. You remind him of the war. He's been very strange since you showed up."
"The war was a long time ago."
"My father says time is merde." She smiled faintly. "Whatever that means. I try not to listen to everything he says. He doesn't like me speaking to men, by the way."
"What if I just nod my head?"
"Be serious. You aren't going to be here forever."
Such a pretty girl, such an ominous line of thought. It was unnerving. "I suppose not," I said.
"What I mean is, you won't be in Geneva forever. People show up and then fly away. It happens all the time. We need to take advantage of the time we have."
I thought so, too, though the image of my body cut to ribbons was something of a brake.
"Let's meet tonight at the Crazy Swan. It's a club. My father won't know anything about it. He doesn't even know where it is. The music is loud and the dance floor is so packed, you can barely move. Some people dance naked once in a while. It will be fun."
It wasn't exactly what I had in mind. Still, I made sure to smile.
"What? Don't you want to be with me? My father's away until tomorrow afternoon. That means tonight is free. Carpe diem, Inspector, don't you think?"
I didn't know what to think. I didn't know how to dance. "Yes," I said, "it will be fun."
I barely got back to the meeting room on time. The other side invited us to dinner that night. The idea of sitting and discussing where socks go instead of writhing with young bodies-some of them not wearing socks, if Dilara was to be trusted-did not appeal to me. Fortunately, fate stepped in. During a break, the delegation leader took me aside. "You slipped," he said. "You spoke English to one of them. They think they can sink their teeth into you. It probably isn't a good idea for you to be at the dinner tonight. What do you think?"
What did I think? He wanted to know what I thought? I thought the image of them as wolves pulling me down and gnawing on my throat was overdrawn. "I really think I should go to the dinner. It's important that I be there. In fact, it's critical that I be there. But if you advise against it, I have to consider that seriously." I paused long enough for serious consideration. "Please pass my regrets, won't you?"
That night, when I reached the club, there was a line at the door. "Good evening, monsieur," the doorman said. "Do you have a ticket?" He asked in French, and when I didn't respond, he repeated the question in English.
"Ticket? I'm meeting someone here." Dilara hadn't mentioned anything about a ticket. "Maybe she's inside. I'll just go in and look."
"No, pal, I don't think so." Given how big his hands were, they were surprisingly gentle on my neck. "We'll just wait over here, and maybe your friend will come out looking for you, eh?"
Jeno emerged from the club. "What are you doing here?" He looked over his shoulder into the noise and the lights beyond the door. "You're not here with Dilara, I hope. Ahmet will cut you to ribbons if he finds out. That isn't a bread knife he carries around. It's his Turkish army knife, the one he carried in the war. The last boyfriend she had was Lebanese. He disappeared."