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“First, everyone will go to his assigned room and unpack. After lunch, you will have one hour in which to rest. In the afternoon, we will go on a tour through downtown Pyongyang, and when you return from the tour you will have dinner. This evening, to help you relax and get over the fatigue of such a long journey, we will take you to the Kyoye Theater. Please complete your luncheon between one and two, and be back here by three o’clock.”

This time, fortunately, each person was assigned a separate room. It wasn’t that Yosŏp actively disliked the professor who’d been his roommate in Beijing — it was just that inconveniences became unavoidable when men of that age were forced to share a small space together.

The hotel itself consisted of a set of twin towers, each about forty stories high. Considering the huge number of rooms available, there seemed to be very few guests in residence. The lobby and the coffee shop were bustling with people, but when Reverend Ryu got out of the elevator on the twelfth floor to find his room, not a single trace of human habitation could be seen anywhere. He was hesitating in the dark corridor when a young woman in an apron suddenly poked her head out of a doorway and rushed over to him.

“What room number?”

Instead of answering, Yosŏp held out his key. The young woman led him to his room. To his amazement, the room was quite luxurious. The front door opened onto a living room and the bedroom was further inside, separate from the main room. In place of carpeting, the floor had been covered with patterned mats — a famous Kaesŏng product — and a stream of cold air flowing down from a vent near the ceiling revealed that the entire place had central air-conditioning.

“If there’s anything you need, just give us a ring.”

After the woman left, Yosŏp sat down on the sofa in the living room, held his hands together, and said a brief prayer to himself:

Our Father in Heaven, I am now back in my homeland. Though these people may be different from us, though they may be a crowd of heathens, please, God, help me to overcome any hatred in my heart towards them. Give me the power to have confidence as a Christian without ever trespassing a whit upon Thy will. Might Thou be with me until the day I leave this place to return home, and through the Holy Spirit, I implore thee, allow Thy humble servant the blessing of faith. In the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, amen.

Inside the Ch’ŏlima25refrigerator Yosŏp found an array of drinks including a pear-flavored soft drink, omija26 water, Ryongsŏng Beer, Kŭmgang Draft Beer, mineral water, and Sindŏk Spring Water. On the dinner table lay two melons, two apples, a glass, a thermos made in China, green tea, a box of milk crackers, and a bag of old-fashioned candy. The bedcovers had a bluish design and looked like silk, but they were probably synthetic.

When it was all said and done, every object in the room struck Reverend Ryu as being somehow unfamiliar — each item seemed like a physical testament to all the lives that had lived in this place over the past forty years during his absence. The doorbell rang. Yosŏp went to the door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s the guide, sir.”

Yosŏp thought the sudden visit odd but opened the door. All Back stood in the doorway. Uninvited, he entered the room as brazenly as if it were his own and sat down, straddling the arm of the sofa.

“Why don’t you have a seat?” he said, as if he were the host. And so, their roles reversed, Yosŏp took the chair opposite All Back and sat down rather tentatively.

“There are a couple of things we need to check with you.”

All Back took out a document from one of his inner pockets and opened it.

“Ryu Yosŏp. you are a minister, correct?”

“That’s right. How do you know that I’m a minister?”

All Back glanced up at Yosŏp for a second then returned to his document.

“At the time of application, you put down Sŏn’gyori, Pyongyang, as your hometown, correct?”

“Well, yes, but I’ve forgotten the exact address.”

“Is anyone in your family still living in our republic?”

Reverend Ryu shook his head firmly, although, in that instant, it occurred to him that his uncle, one of his older sisters, his sister-in-law, and his oldest nephew, Tanyŏl, might still be alive somewhere in Sinch’ŏn.

“No.”

“Not a single one?”

“No, not one. Our entire family moved to the South.”

“What is the name and age of your late father?”

“Let me see, if he were still alive, he would be over ninety. His name was Indŏk. He passed away in the South.”

“Ryu Indŏk? He, also, was Christian?”

“He was a Protestant presbyter.”

“I see. And there’s no one, no relative or friend that you are interested in being reunited with?”

“No,” Yosŏp answered curtly.

“Ah, well, that is all. Please excuse the interruption. Get some rest.”

“Actually, I was just about to leave. Isn’t it time for lunch?”

“So it is.”

Yosŏp left the room with All Back and got on the elevator. Leaning against the opposite wall of the elevator, All Back stared Yosŏp directly in the face.

“I don’t quite understand the purpose of your visit to the motherland.”

“I’m old. I just wanted to come and see my hometown.”

His expression icy, All Back grinned, the corners of his mouth curving slightly up.

“And yet, you say that you have no one, no one at all, to go and see in your hometown?”

Yosŏp stood quietly, his eyes burning a hole through the elevator doors.

The restaurant was bustling with people. Aside from the Homeland Visitors the hotel apparently had guests from Japan and Europe, as well as a number of technicians from Russia. The menu, a traditional Korean lunch, was the same for everyone in the group; it had been planned that way in advance, a typically North Korean way of doing things. The food was a little bland — not spicy enough, but tolerable. When Yosŏp sat down, the professor, who’d been sitting at a different table altogether, sprang up and hurried over to take the seat across from him. Lowering his voice, he whispered to Yosŏp, “Someone searched my bag. I say, these guys really are keeping a close eye on us.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I came out of the shower, I found the zipper on my bag open and my underwear all crumpled.”

“They probably just did a thorough inspection when we passed through customs.”

“It was my carry-on bag — I’ve been holding onto it ever since we got off the plane.” The professor shook his head in indignation. “I specifically requested to be reunited with my family members. I think that might be why they’re watching me like this.”

“Well, then your family must be alive and well. It’s only natural that they would try to find out everything about you before they allowed you to meet them, don’t you think?”

The professor nodded. “Ah, you do have a point there, Reverend.”