It was worse than he had expected.
Aside from the coming and going of modern planes, Pyongyang airport looked like something out of a 1960’s war movie: it was derelict, it was dilapidated; it was third world. Nevertheless, along with the hundred or so other passengers, most of Oriental persuasion, Karl disembarked. After breezing through a surprisingly relaxed customs check and picking up an assortment of travel brochures on the way out, baby in hand, he set about finding the closest accommodation outlet. Quality wasn’t overly important, he just wanted somewhere nearby. Juggling his luggage with his baby with his brochures, he located a suitable hotel/motel/holiday inn and hailed a taxi. Karl had been looking forward to riding in a rickshaw or tuk tuk, or some other interesting form of indigenous transportation, but in contrast to his impression of the airport, at first glance Pyongyang city appeared reasonably upmarket; lone bicycles were the most primitive mode of transport available, but even they weren’t carrying pillions.
Despite his career in the international travel industry Karl had little concept of the value of North Korean currency; he had given the currency exchange at the airport $1000 NZ dollars and was returned a little over 100,000 North Korean won. For the next few minutes he had felt like the wealthiest man in the country, until the taxi driver had demanded a fare of 2020 won. Reality set in. His room at the shabby little hotel/motel/holiday inn cost 14,000 won a night. The proprietor looked bemused when Karl paid the requested fee up front, in cash, and without bargaining. Switching the complaining infant from his left to the right arm, he climbed the steps behind the check-in desk and found his room. He unlocked the door and went inside. He was immediately hit by the odour. It was something akin to what he would have described as rancid air: by Karl’s reckoning, the bacteria-infused air in that room had been left undisturbed for so long that whatever living organisms which called that portion of air home will have died, an inordinate degree of heat is added; the result, hot, fetid, rancid air. The plus side though, after pushing through the palpable malodour, the inside of the room was surprisingly plush.
Karl pulled apart the queen sized bed and used the two pillows along with four cushions from chairs and the sofa to assemble a makeshift bed for Kahn, who had been intermittently vocal since leaving the airport. Karl laid him gingerly on the cushions, praying for peace. The baby wouldn’t be silent. He rolled the boy over, repeating the prayer. Still, the baby cried. Karl lifted him off the bed and gave him his bottle. To no avail. He tried gently bouncing him; this yielded results. Karl smiled, inwardly giving thanks to Bethany for demonstrating the technique in the first place. He had never been any good at being a father, even when his wife was still alive to aid him. He just didn’t have the touch. He hadn’t let that worry him though, because in keeping with Khanum’s desire to maintain Asian tradition he had assumed that she would take care of all the tender stuff while he performed the task of the classic provider. It amazed and at the same time frustrated him at how quickly, how very dramatically, even the best made plans can shift.
Or be shifted.
Ever so carefully he laid the slumbering child on its bed and walked quietly around the room closing the blinds. He then slipped out the door and made his way back down the stairs. Without acknowledging the man at the desk Karl ducked through the main door and out onto the street. The receptionist remained surreptitiously watchful as, once on the sidewalk, Karl spun to look back at the crumbling edifice, casting his gaze upwards as if reading the name of the building, The Rainbow Inn, before turning and purposefully walking down the street.
An hour later, having had no custom since the tall Englishman with the dark hair and the almost unintelligible accent had come in with his baby then left alone, the receptionist watched as two men of his own nationality, one carrying a large canvas bag, appeared on the pavement out the front of the building. Both cast their eyes upwards and exchanged a few short words. They paused as if considering something, before striding confidently into the foyer. The man holding the bag locked eyes with the receptionist before starting up the stairs; the other kept his head down as he followed. Neither man said a word.
Minutes later the men reappeared at the bottom of the stairs. The other man now held the bag; neither man spoke as they pushed through the front door and disappeared down the street.
His hair was a mess. His shirt was soaked with perspiration. His eyes were beseeching; his words distraught.
“Mr Williams,” the stocky man with the authoritative tone glanced up from his desk, “I need you go over your story once more time. Not adding up.”
“What do you mean, ‘not adding up’?” Karl’s distress had given way to exasperation. “What’s to add up? My son is gone. Someone came into my room and took him. He’s gone. What more is there to add up? You’re the police. You’re supposed to be helping me … Someone took my son!”
“Yes,” calmly replied the police Sergeant. “You say your son was taken -”
“Yes, from my hotel room!” Exasperation promptly made way for infuriation.
“Right, your hotel room, where you were not.”
“What? Yes. Right. Where I was not. Yes. I was not there at the time. Otherwise they could not have taken my son.”
“Mr Williams, as I say, you story funny -”
“It’s not funny, it’s bloody serious!”
“No, not funny, funny wrong word, how you say, it’s queer.”
“What? How the hell is my story ‘queer’? My son is missing and all you’re talking about is my ‘queer’ story? I need your help!”
“Mr Williams, please listen to me and do not interrupt. You left your son sleep, on bed, in hotel room -”
“Yes, at the Rainbow Inn.”
“Mr Williams, I must insist that you not interrupt me when I speak.”
“Sorry, go on,” said Karl with forced aplomb.
“The baby sleep. You leave. This correct?”
“This is correct, yes.”
“Just you, no one else?”
“Just me, yes.”
“Where mother, wife?”
“My wife is dead, sir.”
The Sergeant had been periodically making notes in his pad but at that moment, he stopped. “Wife dead, Mr Williams, very sorry hear that.”
“Right, and that’s why I came to this bloody country in the first place, to honour her memory and hopefully find her parents, you know, show them their grandson.”
There followed a long pause. “I’m sorry, Mr Williams, I think I don’t understand … Think maybe my translation not so good.”
“Sergeant,” Karl said, realising how disjointed his story must sound, “my wife was born in North Korea, I think up north, place called, Chongjin … Our son was half Korean.”
Another pause ensued as a look of revelation came over the policeman’s face: “Ah, Chongjin, yes, very far, north,” his look of perpetual confusion had been replaced by cool understanding, “and your son Korean now, OK then.”
Karl felt his ire rising again: “No, he was always Korean. Now, he is missing. In Korea. Sir.”
“OK, let me see,” the Sergeant made more notes. “English father, Korean baby, Korean hotel -”
“Right, so we’ve established background,” said Karl sardonically, “how many more times do you need to go over it? Christ! What are you going to do about my missing son?”
“Tell me, Mr Williams, why you leave room, baby sleeping?”
Karl hesitated mulling over the implications of those words: “What? Are you seriously suggesting this was my fault?”
“No, not at all … So why?”
“Shit, I dunno, to have a look around, I guess, stretch my legs, all of that.”
“Without baby?”
“Yes, without baby. Baby had been awake practically the entire flight from New Zealand, baby needed to rest.”
The police Sergeant appeared to ponder this before asking, “Mr Williams, where did you go?”
“What?” Karl was in disbelief, “Where did I go? Are you serious?”
“Yes, Mr Williams, on your walk, where did you go?”
“Shit, I dunno, down the street a bit, why does it matter?”
The Sergeant looked quizzical. “Many places, in this district, not so good. So, on your walk, where do you go?”
Karl was incensed: “I have no bloody idea where I went. I went somewhere, then when I came back, my son was gone … How the hell does it make any bloody difference, where I went?!”
The police Sergeant held Karl’s gaze as if in a staring competition then lowered his eyes and jotted something in his book, but said nothing.
“Well?” Karl erupted, “What are you going to do to find my son?”
“Oh, we always doing something, Mr Williams.”
“’We always doing something’?! What the hell does that mean?”
“It means, Mr Williams, your Korean son, as I’m sure you aware, is gone.”
“Yes!” Karl screamed, “I know he’s gone! I want you to find him!”
“Find him?” inquired the impassive Sergeant, “But I already know where he is.”
“Where?” Karl leapt up, “Tell me!”
“He with the Government.”
“What? What the hell does that mean, ‘with the Government’?”
The Korean police Sergeant paused while he considered this question. After what seemed an interminable silence he finally spoke: “He been, how you say in England … conscripted.”