As Pang promised, we ended up north of the city. For a moment, I thought we were heading to the airport-which suggested I might be going to Beijing in a box-but we turned off onto a dirt road and drove for about twenty minutes before stopping outside a compound lit with strings of electric lanterns. Through the gate, I could see a pond with four Chinese maple trees around it. Chinese maples are showy and overly delicate. The leaves take a lot of time deciding whether to end up as scarlet or yellow. A few had cut short the agony and dropped into the pond. Off to one side of the compound was a one-story building with no windows and a large radio antenna on the roof. A guard stood in front of the door. He was Chinese, carried a Chinese rifle, and didn’t seem to like me looking at him.
“You might say this is an embassy annex, Inspector. We can have drinks over there.” Pang pointed across a miniature brook with a tiny bridge. “We’ll sit on the pavilion and be serene. Maybe a poem will come to you.”
We sat on mats, which my knees hated instantly. “All very lovely,” I said. “I never knew there was an embassy annex here. I don’t think my Ministry knew it, either.” From the looks of it, this was newly built, and screamingly illegal.
“Of course, this is all fairly recent.” Pang gestured to someone I couldn’t see. “We’ve had the land for a long time.” He gave me a bland look. “The current situation has called for a few adjustments in normal protocol. The paperwork always trails behind. I’m sure you’ve had the same experience.” A woman came out of a low white building some distance from the pavilion. She put down two porcelain teacups and a pot in the shape of a bird. “We’ll have tea,” Pang said. “Would you like ginseng tea?”
“No, I can’t stand it.”
“A Korean who does not like ginseng tea? Can this be? Well, in that case, let me suggest something else. I can offer you very good tea from Zhejiang. I’m sure you’ll appreciate it. General Su Dingfang drank the same tea from these very cups.”
The woman had moved away to stand beside one of the maples. Beneath the lanterns, a smile danced across her lips as she saw Pang pour the tea into my cup.
“Let the tea set for a moment, Inspector. The fragrance builds beautifully if you wait.”
I waited, but not for the tea. Su Dingfang was a T’ang Dynasty general who invaded Korea. He had the help of other Koreans, true enough. If these were his teacups, they were in remarkably good shape. Pang’s had a tiny chip on the rim. The glaze on mine was cracked, but I would be, too, if I were thirteen hundred years old. Assuming these were actually General Su’s teacups, what was Pang doing with them?
“If you like, Major Su over there could refresh your understanding of history.” The woman nodded. “She is a descendent of the general. The teacups have been in her family all these years. They wouldn’t be sitting here in front of us otherwise. It’s quite an honor, don’t you think?”
If I didn’t get up in another minute, I would never stand again. I put my hand on the floor behind me and leaned back to relieve the pressure on my knees. “Don’t tell me, the family thought it would be a filial gesture, returning the teacups to the general’s old battlegrounds.”
Pang rested his hand on the teapot. “They thought the cups would bring the major good luck in her mission. And I am delighted to have her ancestor here with me.”
“A long, long time ago, Colonel. Didn’t you tell me that borders change? The border right now is down the middle of your beloved rivers. That’s where it is going to stay.”
“Don’t misunderstand, Inspector; I’m not here to seize territory. But if some of your countrymen want assistance in resisting pressure from another kingdom, there is a long history of our making ourselves available. Didn’t Baekche ask us for help? In fact, in recent years we’ve been happy to provide shelter for a number of generals from your army who thought it best to live on our side of the river for a while. Now? Well, now they have decided they might want to go home. And we quite agree. In any case, Chinese have been here before, and now they are here again.” He picked up his teacup. “We are quite tolerant, you’ll see.”
“The Japanese have also been here before,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean we want them back.”
“Surely, Inspector, you aren’t comparing us to them.”
“I know General Su was a great military leader.” I bid farewell to my knees. It was hopeless. I would have to be wheeled around from now on. “I also seem to recall-and you or the major will correct me if I am mistaken-that he went home in defeat, having failed to take Pyongyang.” I picked up my cup. It was very delicate. If I crushed it between my fingers, I would not be doing history any favors.
Pang sipped his tea. “All the better for Major Su to return and remedy that.” He smiled. “You could be valuable to your people, Inspector. If you’d rather work with your brothers in the South, of course I understand. But I can tell you that there is no way that they will reclaim this entire peninsula. And anyway, do you think there is any chance that they will integrate you into their fat and happy world? That would set their economy back decades, depress their living standards, lower wages, siphon off capital, create a burden to support twenty-four million needy people-and your people are needy, Inspector. You cannot dispute that.” He waited to see if I would respond.
I put the teacup down gently. “I can dispute anything,” I said. “The question is, what good will it do?”
“Let me be blunt. We know that some of your southern brothers plan to set up a gangster state on your territory. They need it to make money, to hide money, to move money. Other people think such a state will be useful because it can become an ideal platform for operations of all sorts against my country. There used to be such places elsewhere-Macau, for example. But we’ve been shutting down Macau, inch by inch. It is very slow going. Ridding even that tiny island of corruption is not like washing your face. It’s not simply dirt; it has become organic. The job might take several more years to finish, maybe even a decade. Meanwhile, it has already become uncomfortable enough that the big people, important people, are looking elsewhere. People like Zhao. People who give Major Kim his orders. And where do maggots go? To a rotting corpse.”
“Should I start composing poetry now, or should we wait a few more minutes?”
Pang’s expression hardened. “We won’t let that take place on our border. We will never let events come to that. I told you not to go to Macau, but now I’ve changed my mind. Go; look around. It’s better if you get some sense of what happens when corruption takes root. I don’t mean the petty bribery that goes on everywhere; I mean the full-blown version that turns men rancid. If it doesn’t sicken you, if you don’t come back here and tell me that you will work with us, I will be surprised.”
“And you do not like to be surprised.”
“It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s that I’m careful to make sure surprise doesn’t touch my existence, in any way.” His mood visibly improved. “Why don’t I put on some music for us?”
“Chinese opera, perhaps?” I was not looking forward to that, but it seemed all too likely in the presence of General Su and his cups.
“Do you like Chinese opera, Inspector? I can’t stand it. The spectacle is tolerable; at least the costumes are a distraction from the noise. But a recording? I wouldn’t even want to saw boards to it.” He must have realized his mistake immediately, because he reached in his pocket and pulled out a small, paper-thin piece of wood.
“I understand you are much attracted to trees. This is a piece of white birch, from a forest near Harbin. Mean anything to you?”
“As your research has obviously discovered, my father was born in Harbin.” Pang had done his homework. This was his way of telling me that he could step into my life and rearrange it any time he wanted. He didn’t care if I despised him for it, as long as I understood.
Major Su walked over and took away the teacups. Pang waited until she had disappeared inside the white building. “If you look carefully, you’ll see that on the piece of wood is a phone number. The digits are quite small and rather faint, but you should have no trouble making them out. If you see or hear anything in Macau that has a bearing on the fate of your country, call me. Tell the person who answers that you owe me money. They will put you through to me immediately, any time night or day.”