So long was I on the northern frontier, Even my dog growls at my footsteps, I had hoped to sing with friends beneath The stars on my return, but some have died, And two have moved to Pyongyang, much the same thing.
– – Hong Ki Bo (166^-1710)
JL Jl s soon as I got off the train in Pyongyang, I called the office. They gave me a terse detail or two.
"That's it?" I wasn't in the mood for incomplete information anymore.
They squeezed out another sentence. Then, almost as an afterthought, "One more thing. Pak said if you called, he wants you over at the Koryo, eighth floor." There was a brief pause. "Where you been for the past few days?"
"No place good."
It wasn't far from the station to the hotel, and anyway I needed the exercise, so I walked. I considered getting a cup of tea in the hotel coffee shop but decided to do it on the way out. The elevator man was dozing in a chair. When I told him I wanted the eighth floor, he hesitated.
"Ministry of People's Security." I showed him my ID. He frowned.
There was only one room with an open door on the eighth floor.
Even from the hall, it was obvious that the place had not been properly secured or searched. There were no signs of the bits of tape that are supposed to be put on the door frame to show that a crime scene has been gone over, red tape for fingerprints, blue for the crime photographer.
At one point, there used to be a piece of yellow if a guard was posted to restrict entry, but yellow tape is hard to get, so you don't see much of it anymore on door frames.
I knew what had happened; I'd been through it before. The place had been treated more like a museum than a murder scene, officials rotating glumly through, stopping here and there, a few rocking back and forth as they stood, glancing at their watches and wondering if it was near lunchtime. If there was a single real clue left in the room, it would be a miracle. Hotel security had wandered in-the piece of green tape on the hallway door was theirs-but they probably accomplished nothing useful beyond nervously gripping a chair for support, fretting about getting blamed, and wondering how to make a finding of "natural causes" compatible with a crushed skull.