“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Absolutely,” Giovanni lied dismissively. “Good night.”
The massive triangular jetted tub was set into a corner of the palatial master bath. The tiled edges were set at a height that made it easy for Giovanni to transfer back and forth from his chair. The windows fogged from the steam off the water, but otherwise offered a clear view of the city.
“I’ll have to tell the doorman he can eat the Thai delivery,” Giovanni said as they finished what his Sicilian nutritionist had left in the refrigerator.
He hadn’t bothered to heat the chickpea fritters or saffron risotto balls. They’d gobbled them down cold with antipasto and scoops of savory pistachio sauce. He’d even brought a handful of chocolate chip cookies from the freezer. They tasted amazing with the rich red wine they were sipping from stemless glasses.
As he reached to set the tray on the floor beside the edge of the tub, the jets went off. She realized he’d put on music when he’d lowered the lights. Feathery strokes of guitar played over the soothing breaths and lazy keys of an accordion.
He settled back with a sigh of repletion and invited, “Come here.”
She shyly drifted from her seat opposite and he drew her in front of him. She reclined upon him, head pillowed by his shoulder as he stretched his long arms along the tub’s edge and absently adjusted the handheld spray washer in its holder.
“What if we fall asleep like this?” she asked, eyelids heavy.
“Then we will wake up very cold and wrinkly.”
She smiled and they were quiet for a few minutes.
“Will you tell me about your time in North Korea?” he asked.
Her defenses were so low, she felt thin and fragile as his question penetrated. Hot emotion rushed into her eyes and she turned her face against his bicep in an instinctive flinch.
“Can’t you just read it?” Telling him the story, when she was this defenseless, felt too hard.
“You don’t want to tell me?” Subtle tension hardened the body that cradled hers.
“It makes me sad. And no one will let me be sad. They want me to be angry. And grateful that I was rescued.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m grateful to be in a country where I can talk and move freely, obviously. But I’m equally grateful to have had a home there. I wasn’t as miserable there as people want me to be.”
“You said your father’s editor didn’t send him there. What were you two doing there? Why did he drag you into the farthest reaches of China, never mind North Korea?”
“That was his job,” she defended her father for what felt like the millionth time. It amazed her how many people criticized him for taking his daughter into remote parts of the world when his tales of parenting while trying to avoid yellow fever, Zika, and old-fashioned travel tummy were the reasons for his great appeal. “Taking impulsive side trips was very normal for us. We were visiting the crater lake in the nature preserve on the border between China and North Korea when the opportunity came up to join a tour to see the other side. Pappa was always trying to make a point that people are just people and that nearly every place in the world is safe to visit if you’re respectful. It was, but we were hiking in the foothills of the mountains when he had the stroke. The guide had to run to ask villagers to come back with a vehicle to carry him down. He had passed by the time they got us to the clinic.”
“I’m so sorry.” His voice was a grave, reassuring rumble against her back. His arm slid under the water and around her waist, holding her comfortingly close. “That must have been terrifying. You were seventeen?”
“Yes. And the rest of our tour had to move on. Our guide left me at the clinic with my father’s body. I saw the guide hand my passport to an official in a military uniform. I thought, That’s bad, but there wasn’t anything I could do.”
“Could you speak the language at all?”
“Only rudimentary words like ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Byung-woo was the doctor who wrote out Pappa’s death certificate. He and his wife, Sung-mi, lived upstairs. I was a wreck, obviously. She brought me a cup of tea and I could see her pretending not to listen to the men. She was being very stoic, but I could tell whatever they were saying was bad. I did the only thing I could think of. I tried to hand all my money to Sung-mi.”
“Bribery,” he said with disdain. “That quaint and reliable solution to any problem.”
“I pretended I was trying to finance a proper burial for my father.”
“And?”
“She took it into the room where the men were talking and they closed the door. A little while later, the official left and Sung-mi and Byung-woo brought my father’s body into a special room and helped me lay him out. Villagers came by over the next few days, sat with me while I grieved. Then they took him back into the mountains and we buried him in a small graveyard.”
“So he’s still there.”
“Yes.” And she thought it somewhat appropriate that he rested as he had lived, an interloper accepted in a land that wasn’t his own.
“Did you try to leave at that point?”
“Foreigners aren’t allowed to use public transport. There was no internet. Things like booking a flight or online banking... All those things people take for granted weren’t available to me. My cash was gone. The few times Pappa and I had talked about what I should do if he passed, Pappa always said that Oliver would help me settle his affairs, so I went to that same official. I gave him a letter to mail for me. Open, of course. I made sure it said how well I was being treated and that I only wished to leave because I felt I was a burden on my hosts—which I was.”
“He mailed it? You said earlier that the Swedish government was the first to get involved.”
“Oliver never got the letter, but the guide made a report about my father’s death. More officials turned up. That’s when I realized I was being officially detained, but I guess my letter reassured them. They left me in the custody of Byung-woo and Sung-mi instead of sending me to a work camp or jail.”
“Why would they risk taking in a stranger? One from the West no less?”
That cool, inquisitive tone of his bothered her. She started to sit up, but his arm stayed heavy across her waist. After a disgruntled moment, she sank back into him.
“When Sung-mi brought me upstairs that first night, she put me in a tiny room under the slant of the roof. It had a single bed with a handmade quilt. There was a chair with a doll in it and a pair of child’s glasses on the table. There was a box of puzzles beneath the bed.”