James Church - The Man with the Baltic Stare

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.

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.”

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.

“Welcome.” Three clerks, three heads bobbing in unison.

The first of them put a piece of paper on the counter and waved a pen. “Check the information and then sign, if you please. You’re staying with us for six nights?”

“Who said I’m staying here six nights?” I signed the form without glancing at it. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

The oldest of the trio nodded vigorously and gave me a little folder with a plastic card in it. “This is your room key. Room Twelve Nineteen, that’s on the twelfth floor. Breakfast starts at six thirty on the second floor.” He delicately indicated the second floor, his arm extended just so. “And the bar is downstairs, to the left.” Also delicately indicated.

“Your luggage is arriving later?” The third of the trio was pretty, like a little bird. She might at any moment, I thought, break out in chirps and whistles.

“No luggage. I was told?… never mind.” Since when did I explain myself to hotel front desks?

The bird rang a small bell; a young man in a tight-fitting yellow uniform appeared next to me. He put out his hand, which I shook. “How do you do?” I said.

He looked at the trio and then at me. “Hand over the key card. I’ll take you to your room.”

“No need,” I said. “I know my way around these places.”

“Sure,” the young man said. “All the same, it would be my pleasure.”

I shuddered inwardly. Unctuousness and neon-a killer combination I had thought would never make it this far up the peninsula, not to Pyongyang. I looked around. The lobby had a few chairs in one corner and a potted plant in another. Along the front wall, near the revolving glass door, was a single chair. Slumped in it was a man wearing a cheap suit and a vacant expression. He had the look of someone doomed forever to stare into morning fog off an empty coast. His eyes took me in, but I wasn’t sure what had registered. It was all getting to be unnerving-the streetlights, the lobby, this man staring into nothing. Maybe Li was right. Maybe I really didn’t know as much as I thought I once did. Maybe I didn’t know anything anymore.

The young man in yellow came up in the elevator with me, opened the door to a room, turned on the lights, and stood next to the bed. “The TV is there,” he said. “The bathroom is there.”

It was a big room, but not so big I couldn’t have figured out either of those on my own. “Sure.” I looked around. “Classy place. Wouldn’t want to confuse those two.”

“You can get music in the bath if you like. There’s a TV screen there, too, if you get lonely. Don’t worry; it only goes one way.”

I nodded.

“Also, the drapes open electronically. Don’t try fooling with them by hand or you’ll break something. I can find you something if you get real lonely, better than the TV.” He rubbed the fingers on one hand together.

“Why don’t you go back downstairs and be slimy with your friends?”

He didn’t seem offended; at least, the grin he gave me looked real enough. “I could do that.” He held out his hand.

“I already shook with you. Is this a new hotel custom, shaking hands on every floor?”

“A tip, you know-a gratuity, service charge, payment in advance for errands to be run, a friendly barrier against unfavorable winds and life’s unexpected turns. See what I mean?”

I walked past him to the door, held it open, and jerked my head in the direction of the hallway. “I’ll give you a tip,” I said. “Don’t play with matches.”

I sat on the bed and studied the place. It was square, and no attempt had been made to hide that basic fact. “You are paying to sleep in a box,” each of the walls said. One of them had a window in the center, which might have broken the monotony except that the window was square. If I’d had a suitcase, at this point I would have unpacked. There was a certain satisfaction, I recalled, in unpacking a suitcase in a hotel room. On overseas liaison trips for the Ministry, I stayed mostly in cheap rooms. To open the drawers and put something in, even only a pair of socks, gave an air of permanence, of personality, to a place.

The bureau was pine stained to look like something else. It had three drawers. I opened each of them. Usually there was a piece of paper, emergency instructions, something in them. These were empty, a mini-universe of infinite nothingness. I took the wood chips from my pocket and dumped them on the desk. This place needed something. There was nothing homey about it, not like the Koryo Hotel. Why hadn’t they put me up there? Maybe they were installing the neon lights and laying new carpets. I hated to think what had been done to its lobby.