A week later, the phone rang again. The wind had been blowing hard all day, but now it stopped abruptly, so it seemed even more quiet than usual, the way an autumn afternoon can get when the year has nothing left to say. Late afternoon quiet, late afternoon light; you could blow your brains out at that time of day in October and nothing would happen. Everything died in autumn. The afternoon wouldn’t notice.

“O here.”

“They’ll be at your place in a few minutes.”

It was the same voice. This was annoying, this abrupt familiarity. “You have a wrong number again.”

“Yeah, must be. I’m just dialing at random, making obscure comments to pass the time.”

“Do we know each other? I don’t recognize the voice. You called before, right? Maybe we should introduce ourselves, if this is going to get regular.”

“That’s fine. Listen, this time when they drive up, you go out to meet them.”

“And if I don’t feel like it?”

“There’s no interest in your preferences, comrade. Put on a coat and tie, and be outside when they pull up. The whole thing won’t take very long. You’ll be back in time to fix dinner and to sand wood far into the night.”

I hung up. Even if the driver was suicidal, he couldn’t get to Pyongyang and back in time for dinner. He probably couldn’t even do it the same day. It didn’t matter-I wasn’t putting on a tie.

As I closed the door behind me and walked out to the car, I could see that this time there was no “they.” The driver was by himself, sitting in the front seat, staring out the front windshield. It wasn’t even the same driver who had been here the week before.