WHILE JEAN-PIERRE AND CHRISTIAN might well have shown a lack of initiative, as the general suspected based on the training report, they did have a reasonable excuse, because their room for maneuver was slim. Trapped in their hotel, reduced to the status of mere tourists, they had not been allowed to perform the task that they had, in principle, been hired to do: guarding Constance’s body. Their constant suggestions, requests, and innuendos on this topic resulted only in more delaying tactics from their guides.
They only ever left the Yanggakdo with those guides in close attendance. Yun Sam-yong and Im Chin-sun had completely different personalities. The former was austere and reserved and spent his time napping and taking notes as the car moved through the capital, whose sights were praised in a stream of robotic compliments by the latter, their smiling and determined interpreter. It seemed that the principal role of the former was to surveil the latter—although it was probably the other way around. While displaying an excessive mutual friendliness, the two guides spent as much time watching each other as they did their guests, vigilant above all that they did not have the slightest contact with any passersby.
So, a tourist trip. After having to bow, like Constance and everyone else, before the giant statues, they were taken to rhapsodize over every possible monument. Kim Il-sung Square, the Kim Il-sung Arch of Triumph, and the Kim Il-sung Mausoleum, to start with. Then the Grand People’s Study House, the Schoolchildren’s Palace, the Victorious War Museum, not forgetting a quick visit to the USS Pueblo—the American spy boat captured in January 1968 and now moored on the right bank of the Taedong River—before ending the morning at the Embroidery Institute, where Im Chin-sun encouraged Jean-Pierre and Christian to buy a few overpriced souvenirs—in euros, dollars, whatever they preferred—for their wives. We don’t have wives, they said, starting to feel tired.
In the afternoon, they were taken to the metro to admire its monumental architecture, its fiddly details, its bronze and marble, its chandeliers and colonnades, its multicolored portraits of the leaders, and its vast murals. The rolling stock was mostly Chinese-made, although they did glimpse—despite the best attempts of Yun to screen its furtive passage—an old train of East German origin, still covered with pre-1989 graffiti, unrenovated, unstandardized. Their metro journey, however, was limited to the last two stops on Line 1, between Puhung and Yonggwang: Jean-Pierre and Christian made this trip in the company of their guides, of course, along with a handful of natives, supposedly just random fellow travelers but too well dressed, perhaps, to be anything other than extras. Those two stations, presumably the most attractive on the network, were the only ones shown to the visitors, opening the door to the hypothesis that there were in fact no other stations, or maybe that this was a parallel network for government use only, inspired by the secret lines on the Moscow metro.
To end the day on a high note, they were taken to see the Juche Tower, symbol of the juche ideology, the North Korean version of communism, which is based less on orthodox, rational Marxism-Leninism and more on principles of political independence, economic self-sufficiency, and military autonomy. The tower was five hundred feet tall, and from its peak, which you could reach by means of a rapid, optional elevator—payable in dollars or euros—you commanded a panoramic view of the capital. After that, they were taken back to the hotel, with Im and Yun promising other climbs (notably the mountains of Paektu, Songak, and Kumgang) and wonders in the coming days.
Jean-Pierre and Christian felt saturated, exhausted, and especially frustrated not to have been able to decipher the slogans that they saw everywhere on banners, posters, and gigantic billboards. These slogans, invariably ending with an exclamation point, were presumably exhortations to the masses to praise their leaders, celebrate the party’s actions, vilify those imperialist American bastards—as well as the faggot puppets installed in power in the South by said imperialist bastards—and blindly follow the essential principles of juche, among many other excellent pieces of advice.
Christian, in particular, could barely summon the strength to remain upright by the end of the day, and Jean-Pierre had to force him to go downstairs to eat dinner in the hotel restaurant. There, they found themselves with plates full of the local delicacy, noodles in sweet potato starch, floating in a cold beef broth. After two beers, they didn’t even feel like going outside to get some air, which was in any case forbidden. Back in their rooms, it seemed all the easier just to try to sleep, given that the power always went off at ten p.m. Jean-Pierre managed this without difficulty but was woken by Christian banging on his door one hour later, complaining of gastric discomfort: You wouldn’t have any MiraLax or something like that, would you? I think I’ve gotten rid of the noodles, but it’s the broth . . .
The power did not go out at the residence where Constance was staying. On the contrary, even the garden was lit up. Gang Un-ok had been busy all day and in the early part of the evening with high-level meetings, so she had spent her time walking in town accompanied by her own guides, two women who were much funnier and more likable than Im and Yun. Once again, the people she passed in the streets did not look particularly unhappy, because Pyongyang enjoyed a privileged status. It was separated from the rest of the country by numerous checkpoints, and its inhabitants had been handpicked for their loyalty to the dynastic regime.
At nightfall, she ate dinner alone in her room—a light meal of pea mousse with pomelo zest—then turned on the TV and channel-surfed until she found TV5 Monde: Tonight I welcome Pierre Michon, whose appearances are, as we all know, very rare, and I would like to thank you sincerely, Pierre Michon, for accepting my invitation. You’re welcome, smiled Michon. And first of all, Pierre Michon, a question that seems to me central to your work: the style, by which I mean that singular manner that is your own, does that provoke the content or is it the consequence of that content? I don’t know if I’m making myself clear. Absolutely, absolutely, answered Michon after a long silence, but it’s perhaps a little more complicated than that. It’s not that binary, you see. He was about to say more when the bedroom door opened without warning and Gang Un-ok appeared. Constance pressed the power button on the TV remote control.
First, Gang threw himself on her, which took up quite a bit of our time. Then, when they’d both gotten their breath back, he suggested they go to a few nightclubs. They did this, and Constance observed that in the chic areas of Pyongyang the nightclubs were in every way similar to nightclubs all over the world. Large, shiny, brand-new European cars, some of them convertibles, were parked outside the entrance of the first club. Inside, a mostly young crowd of people filled the vast space, dancing, talking very loud, fooling around, singing karaoke in front of giant screens, buying drinks for the pretty hostesses, spending their foreign money without counting, and chugging drinks. On this last point, Gang refused to be outdone, and Constance watched as he became more and more talkative. Sometimes I feel like I can’t bear those meetings anymore, he shouted so she could hear him over the din, and she began to listen carefully: as General Bourgeaud had envisaged, internationally important confidences seemed about to be shared any minute now.
Back at the villa in the early morning, after watching the apparatchik bump into the walls of the corridor as they walked to their room, Constance thought she could make the most of his inebriation while they undressed: So what was that meeting about? Sitting on the edge of the bed, taking his shoes off without undoing the laces, using the toe section of his right to push the heel section of his left, Gang said: Just a routine Workers’ Party Central Military Committee meeting. I have to go to one every month, and they’re exhausting. Were there many of you? Constance asked, with a yawn. Let me think, said Gang, pulling his socks off so they ended up inside out. Well, there was the director of the People’s Army General Political Bureau, the army chief of staff, the head of the defense office, the head of the air force, the minister of state security, the financial director of the Workers’ Party . . . and who else? Oh yeah, three party assistant directors. And me. So, you see, quite a few people. What about your president? suggested Constance as she unhooked her bra. Of course, smiled Gang, struggling with his shirt buttons, Kim was there. For meetings of that level, he always comes. But what do you talk about, in that kind of thing? Constance asked casually. Why? He had stopped smiling. Are you interested? Not really, laughed Constance, leaping on top of him, I just wanted to hear your voice.
Now it is five in the morning. The sun is rising over Pyongyang. The recently installed nocturnal illuminations have all gone out except for the eternal red flame at the top of the Juche Tower. They fucked, then they grew drowsy and fell asleep. Gang Un-ok soon started snoring quietly, and before long Constance was doing the same.
Jean-Pierre, too, was asleep when there was a loud knock at his door: Christian stood in the corridor, looking pale and holding his hand to his abdomen, dressed in a striped pajama jacket that Jean-Pierre noticed had the buttons in the wrong holes. Jesus, do you know what time it is? he protested. Shut up, Christian shouted, this is an emergency. You wouldn’t have any Imodium or something like that, would you? I really don’t feel good at all. Ah, it’s nothing, Jean-Pierre diagnosed. All you have, my boy, is a classic case of Pyongyang tummy. I’m not your boy, Christian yelled. Now show me what drugs you have. Immediately.